In its Tourism Outlook: UAE newsletter, Visa has published an overview of the use of Visa debit and credit cards by tourists in 2009-2010.
According to the Visa report, along with the growing popularity of cashless payments in the UAE, the amount of such payments made by tourists on Visa cards is also growing. During 2010, tourists thus spent US $ 3.1 billion, which is 20.3% more than in 2009, having completed a total of 12.8 million transactions (+21.7% compared to the previous year) .
By the number of payments made in the UAE by foreign tourists on Visa cards, UK citizens are the leaders who spent US $ 441.2 million in 2010 in the United Arab Emirates, which is almost 10% more than in 2009. Tourists from America (US $ 302.9) and Russia (US $ 238.1) took the second and third places in the list of the most active Visa users in the UAE in 2010.
Visa’s report also shows that Visa cardholders were most active last year in November and December, which are the most popular months of the high tourist season in the UAE. A fifth of all last year's transactions made by tourists using Visa cards in the UAE are in the last months of 2010.
