Hotel occupancy rates have dropped and hotels have been forced to slash their rates.
A hotel executive who declined to be named said the chain he manages had cut prices by 40 percent to 50 percent. Usually, occupancy rates in the winter high season were close to 100 percent, he said, but they were already down to 60 percent in December.
Lloyd-Jones cited industry sources as saying occupancy rates were down by 25 percent in some hotels as of early last month.
“Tourists are a very important element of spending in Dubai: They comprise up to 25 percent of [customers in] some of the tourist-oriented malls,” he said.
Alongside hydrocarbons and real estate, the UAE relies on the services sector, which in 2007 represented 47.9 percent of real GDP.
But the UAE is forecast to see a deceleration in economic growth this year. Shuaa Capital predicts 2.4 percent growth this year, compared with 7.5 percent last year.
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