According to Visa research released last year, Chinese tourists spend an average $650 on a trip to Dubai, 3.5 times higher than travelers from the United States.

The latest China Luxury Tourism White Paper, meanwhile, jointly published earlier this year by the Hurun Rich List and ILTM Asia, ranked the Emirate as the third most-favored tourism destination for affluent Chinese, up from eighth last year.

It added Dubai attracted more than 270,000 Chinese travelers in 2013, an 11 percent increase on 2012, while China was among Dubai's top 10 tourist origin countries.

China Southern Airlines has just announced four direct flights to Dubai per week, starting Sept 29, from Lanzhou in Gansu province, via Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The two cities become the fourth and fifth Chinese mainland cities to have direct international flights there, after Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The 5,216-km flights will stop briefly at Urumqi for refueling, taking eight hours from Lanzhou to Dubai, and five hours from Urumqi to Dubai.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 09/19/2014 page23)