Emirates enter top ten ranking

The growing popularity of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is reflected in the latest rankings of major destinations on the German market with its first position within the top ten.

The UAE moved up from number 16 to number ten in the FVW Giata destination ranking for September 2008. Other winners were Tunisia, up from ten to six, Italy, up from 12 to eight, and Thailand, up from 15 to nine compared to 12 months ago.
Turkey moved to the top of the ranking with 18.8% of all enquiries in the Giata database compared to just 14.8 % one year earlier. Spain slipped to second place with 18.7% compared to 19.2% one year earlier. Egypt, Greece and the Dominican Republic remained unchanged in the following positions.

Among the individual/regional destinations, the Turkish Riviera remained the clear leader ahead of Hurghada and Majorca while the Sinai moved up to fourth place ahead of Crete. Tenerife saw strong demand, rising to sixth position from number 15 last year, but Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura were less popular.

The FVW Giata destination ranking is a travel demand indicator showing the volume of enquiries by some 16,000 German travel agents and most leading electronic booking tools in the Giata database of 60,000 hotels offered by 75 German tour operators.