Gulf Tourism Reaches USD 254 Billion: GCC Ministers Approve a Joint Recovery Plan in Manama After 75 Million Arrivals and USD 131 Billion of Visitor Spending in 2025

12 September 2026

Travel and tourism in the Gulf Cooperation Council is now worth about USD 254 billion a year, or 11.4% of the combined GDP of the six member states. The figure was put on the record by GCC Secretary General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi at the 10th meeting of GCC ministers responsible for tourism, held in Manama on Thursday 10 September 2026, where the ministers approved a joint plan for the sector. The bloc received more than 75 million international tourists in 2025, up 4.8%, about 20 million people travelled between GCC countries, up 3.6%, and visitor spending passed USD 131 billion against roughly USD 120 billion a year earlier. For a company operating in the UAE the meeting changed no rule and fixed no date: it approved a recovery plan, agreed a common promotion and data agenda, and named Al Jabal Al Akhdhar in Oman as the Gulf Tourism Capital for 2027.

What the ministers approved in Manama

The session was chaired by the Minister of Tourism of Bahrain, Fatima bint Jaafar Al Sairafi, under Bahrain’s presidency of the 46th session of the GCC. Saudi Arabia was represented by Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al Khateeb, Oman by Minister of Heritage and Tourism Sayyid Ibrahim bin Said Al Busaidi, and Qatar by the President of Qatar Tourism, Saad bin Ali Al Kharji.

The joint statement issued after the meeting records one decision in operative language: the ministers approved the tourism sector recovery plan, a package of initiatives meant to bring momentum back to Gulf tourism after the regional developments of the past year. Everything else in the communique is framed as continued coordination rather than a new obligation. The ministers described the sector as having shown high resilience, and tied the next stage to the GCC Tourism Strategy that runs from 2023 to 2030.

Albudaiwi set out three priorities for the phase ahead: strengthening the resilience and preparedness of the sector, accelerating joint GCC initiatives and projects, and deepening tourism integration between member states. The Manama meeting followed an extraordinary session of the same ministers held in April 2026, convened to keep coordination running while travel conditions were shifting.

The numbers behind USD 254 billion

The headline number is not ticket sales or hotel revenue alone. It is the direct and indirect contribution of travel and tourism to the economies of the six states, which is why it is roughly double the USD 131 billion that visitors actually spent. Here is the 2025 picture the Secretariat presented in Manama.

Two of those lines matter more than the rest for anyone selling to tourists. The first is intra Gulf travel: 20 million trips inside the bloc means roughly one visitor in four already comes from a neighbouring member state, and that segment is growing on its own account. The second is the spending line, because it rose faster than arrivals, which is what the region’s operators had been arguing for years is the real target. Saudi Arabia alone reported about 3.2 million visitors from other GCC countries in the first half of 2026, so the intra Gulf flow has carried into the current year.

Where the UAE sits inside the Gulf total

The UAE does not publish a national arrivals number on the same basis as the GCC Secretariat, but it publishes hotel statistics, and those are the cleanest read on the country’s share. Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri set out the 2025 results at the second meeting of the Emirates Tourism Council in Ras Al Khaimah.

Dubai accounts for the largest single block of that activity. The emirate recorded 19.59 million international overnight visitors in 2025, up 5% on 18.72 million in 2024, and closed the year with 2.04 million visitors in December alone. Hotel occupancy averaged 80.7% against 78.2% a year earlier, the average daily rate rose 8% to AED 579 and revenue per available room rose 11% to AED 467, with an average stay of 3.7 nights. GCC source markets delivered 2.99 million of those visitors, or 15% of the total, with the wider MENA region adding another 2.17 million. That is the Manama agenda expressed in one emirate’s numbers: the neighbouring Gulf market is already Dubai’s second largest catchment after Western Europe, which sent 4.1 million. On the pricing side, our earlier piece on Dubai hotel rates during the September 2026 exhibition calendar shows how sharply that demand converts into room rates when the events diary fills up.

The joint initiatives that reach business directly

Stripped of diplomatic wording, the Manama package contains six work streams that a tourism business in the Gulf would eventually feel.

• A unified Gulf tourist guide licence. Discussed at the meeting, not yet issued. Today a guide is licensed by the authority of the country where they work.
• Common hotel classification guidelines. A shared manual for star ratings across the six markets, also at discussion stage. Classification in the UAE remains the job of the local tourism authority of each emirate.
• A GCC tourism data and indicators dashboard. The bloc wants one statistical system and one set of definitions, which is the precondition for the rest of the agenda being measurable at all.
• Joint packages, programmes and routes. Products sold as a Gulf itinerary rather than a single country trip, backed by unified international promotion and joint marketing campaigns in target markets.
• The unified Gulf tourist visa. Qatar used the meeting to call for faster implementation and for the visa to be paired with joint promotion. No launch date was announced in Manama.
• The Gulf Tourism Capital title. Doha holds it for 2026; Al Jabal Al Akhdhar in Oman’s Al Dakhiliyah Governorate was named for 2027 at this meeting. The ministers also backed Saudi Arabia’s renewed candidacy for the Executive Council of UN Tourism representing the Middle East for 2027 to 2031.

What the meeting did not decide

This is the part that gets lost when a story is written from the headline figure. The Manama communique contains no effective date, no fee, no threshold and no legal text. Nothing announced on 10 September 2026 changes a licensing requirement, a visa rule or a tax position for a company registered in the UAE. The unified Gulf visa remains an initiative that member states have agreed to accelerate, not a product a traveller can apply for on the strength of this meeting. The guide licence and the hotel classification manual are drafting exercises at the Secretariat level; both would still have to be adopted country by country.

What the meeting does give a business is direction and a timetable risk. If the data dashboard, the joint promotion and the single visa track do land, they land together, and the companies positioned for a regional itinerary rather than a single city break are the ones that benefit first.

What this means for companies in the UAE

• Hospitality and holiday homes. The intra Gulf segment is already 15% of Dubai’s arrivals. Pricing, language support and package design for Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari and Bahraini guests is a current commercial question, not a future one.
• Tour operators, DMCs and transport. The joint routes work stream is aimed exactly at multi country itineraries. Building a Gulf product now is cheap; retrofitting one after a single visa launches is not.
• Events and MICE. The unified promotion and the Tourism Capital calendar create a regional events schedule worth planning around, with Doha in 2026 and Al Jabal Al Akhdhar in 2027.
• Investors in hotel stock. The UAE Tourism Strategy 2031 targets AED 450 billion of tourism contribution to GDP, AED 100 billion of additional tourism investment and 40 million hotel guests a year. In Dubai, the Hotel Incentive Programme launched by the Department of Economy and Tourism in October 2025 applies to new hotels, resorts and hotel apartments in Dubai South, Palm Jebel Ali, Dubai Parks and Dubai Islands.
• Anyone entering the market. Tourism activities in the UAE are licensed, and the licence decides which activity you may actually sell. Choosing between a mainland licence and a free zone one is the first decision, and our guide on mainland versus free zone companies in the UAE sets out the trade offs.

How Atlant Capital can help

We work with companies that sell to the visitor economy: hospitality operators, tour and transport businesses, event organisers, retail and food and beverage. We handle company setup in the UAE with the activity list matched to what you actually intend to sell, corporate bank account opening including the documentation banks ask of seasonal and cash intensive businesses, and work visas and residency for the staff you bring in. If your plan depends on a regional footprint rather than a single emirate, tell us at the structuring stage: it changes the licence and the banking file.

FAQ

How large is the Gulf tourism sector?

The direct and indirect contribution of travel and tourism to the economies of the six GCC states reached about USD 254 billion in 2025, equal to 11.4% of the bloc’s GDP, according to GCC Secretary General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi. Visitors themselves spent more than USD 131 billion, up from about USD 120 billion in 2024, and the bloc received more than 75 million international tourists, a rise of 4.8%.

What exactly did the GCC tourism ministers approve in Manama?

At their 10th meeting, held on 10 September 2026 under Bahrain’s chairmanship, the ministers approved the tourism sector recovery plan, a set of initiatives aimed at restoring momentum to Gulf tourism. They also agreed to accelerate joint packages and routes, unified international promotion, a GCC tourism data and statistics system, and cooperation on innovation, digital transformation and skills. Al Jabal Al Akhdhar in Oman was named Gulf Tourism Capital for 2027.

Does the Manama plan change any rule for a tourism business in the UAE?

No. The joint statement sets no effective date, no fee and no threshold, and it does not amend any UAE law or licensing requirement. Tourism activities in the UAE continue to be licensed by the tourism authority of the relevant emirate on the existing basis. The unified Gulf tourist guide licence and the common hotel classification guidelines were discussed at the meeting but have not been issued.

Is the unified GCC tourist visa available now?

Not on the basis of this meeting. Qatar used the Manama session to call for faster implementation of the unified Gulf tourist visa and for it to be combined with joint promotional campaigns in priority markets, but no launch date was announced in the ministers’ joint statement. Travellers still need a visa for each GCC country under the existing national rules.

The takeaway

Manama produced one real decision and a long list of intentions. The decision, a joint recovery plan for Gulf tourism, matters because it is the first time the bloc has set a common answer to a demand shock rather than six national ones. The intentions matter because they describe the shape of the market in three years: one promotion voice, one data set, and eventually one visa across a region that already receives 75 million visitors and books USD 254 billion of economic activity from them. Companies in the UAE do not need to do anything differently on 12 September 2026. They do need to know which of their products would survive being sold as a Gulf itinerary rather than a Dubai one.