As 2025 draws to a close, the UAE’s tourism and digital marketing landscape stands transformed — shaped by record visitor numbers, experience-led travel demand, and a decisive shift toward data-driven advertising. Insights from Yango Ads, the adtech arm of Yango Group, offer a snapshot of how the year redefined the way travel brands planned, targeted, and converted audiences in one of the world’s most competitive tourism markets.
Tourism remained a cornerstone of the UAE economy through the year, contributing AED 236 billion — about 12% of GDP — in 2024 and continuing its upward trajectory in 2025. Dubai alone recorded 9.88 million overnight visitors in the first half of the year, putting it firmly on track for another record. This growth was underpinned by sustained government investments, including Etihad Rail, tourism-friendly visa reforms, and high-impact global campaigns led by Visit Dubai, reinforcing tourism’s role in the country’s long-term diversification strategy.
But beyond scale, 2025 was defined by a change in traveller behaviour. According to Yango Ads’ 2025 Tourism Industry Guide, travellers became more deliberate and digitally engaged, spending longer researching, comparing options, and seeking personalised experiences before booking. Demand skewed increasingly towards premium travel, with a majority opting for four- and five-star hotels, and nearly half of travellers from emerging markets willing to spend over $2,000 per trip.
Seasonality patterns held, but with sharper contrasts. Eid, summer, and the year-end festive period once again emerged as peak travel windows. Travellers from emerging markets continued to favour summer holidays, while GCC residents leaned toward winter escapes — a split that shaped media planning and campaign timing throughout the year. Solo travel also gained ground among younger audiences, further fragmenting traditional travel personas.
For marketers, this evolving behaviour forced a rethink. Rather than relying on short, seasonal bursts, brands increasingly adopted full-funnel, intent-driven strategies. High-intent signals — such as repeated travel searches, app usage, and engagement with digital content — became central to campaign planning. Successful brands mapped the traveller journey end-to-end: inspiring audiences during the planning phase, activating geo-targeted offers mid-trip, and re-engaging post-travel through loyalty and retention campaigns.
Digital advertising investment rose in tandem with this shift. By the end of 2025, UAE ad spend was projected to reach $1.22 billion, with programmatic buying, first-party data, super apps, and location-based targeting emerging as core pillars of travel marketing. Travel brands were among the most aggressive adopters. Nearly half of travellers reported being influenced by targeted ad campaigns, while search engines (41.7%), messaging platforms such as Telegram (21%), and social media (20%) played significant roles in shaping decisions.
Campaign performance reflected this growing digital responsiveness. Yango Ads cited multiple examples where connected customer data platforms and cross-platform attribution delivered measurable outcomes. A brand awareness campaign for GGC Tourism, for instance, resulted in a 13% increase in actual flight and hotel bookings on aggregator platforms within a seven-day attribution window. Elsewhere, interactive formats gained traction — including a customised itinerary-planning platform where users answered quizzes to receive personalised travel recommendations, boosting engagement and hotel visibility.
Planning horizons also became more strategic in 2025. With most travellers booking two to three months in advance, early planning emerged as a competitive advantage. Large festive activations required lead times of five to twelve months, while regional campaigns demanded agility within shorter one- to three-month windows. Long-haul markets such as Europe and the US continued to plan further ahead, with American travellers often finalising trips nearly a year in advance.
On the source market front, India retained its position as the UAE’s largest contributor of visitors in 2025. Saudi Arabia rose to second place, overtaking the UK — a shift from 2024 that underscored the Kingdom’s growing importance as a priority market. Russia, China, and a cluster of emerging markets also contributed steadily to overall growth.
Looking back, 2025 marked a turning point for travel marketing in the UAE. The year demonstrated that scale alone was no longer enough; success increasingly depended on early planning, precision targeting, and campaigns built around personalisation and experience. For brands willing to experiment — and for adtech players enabling smarter execution — the year offered a clear lesson: in a crowded tourism market, relevance and timing are now the strongest currencies.
As the UAE heads into 2026, the foundations laid this year suggest that travel advertising will only become more intelligent, more personalised, and more deeply embedded in the traveller journey than ever before.
