Dubai remains the 7th most popular destination among British travellers in 2025, more popular than some of the world’s top tourist destinations such as Mauritius, Phuket, Miami, Bangkok, Rome, Australia, Tokyo, Los Angeles, the Caribbean cities and others, according to a survey released by the British Airways.
The survey analysed holiday package searches on the airline’s website in the UK. The study compared data from January 1 to July 24, 2024, for 2025 travel dates, with searches done from January 1 to July 28, 2023 for 2024 travel dates.
New York, Orland, Las Vegas, Maldives, Barbados, and Cancun are the six most popular destinations for British holidaymakers.
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Dubai has emerged as a year-round destination for tourists. Winter is usually the most popular period for tourists, but many tourists come to explore Dubai for shopping and indoor entertainment in the summer as well.
“The desire for holidays is still on the up, be that winter sun and festive mini breaks for 2024, or far-flung holiday hotspots for 2025. We are thrilled to see such an incredible selection of destinations on our top 25 for 25 list,” said Claire Bentley, managing director of British Airways Holidays.
Connectivity between Dubai and London airports is pretty strong as the two destinations are one of the busiest routes for the two airports. In addition to Dubai’s flagship carrier Emirates and British Airways, many other airlines also operate direct flights between the two countries.
Dubai International Airport (DXB) has also been ranked high when it comes to passenger traffic from London and the UK as both were ranked in the top 3 sources of traffic for DXB.
According to Dubai Airport’s figures, DXB’s top destination country after India (6.1 million) and Saudi Arabia (3.7 million) was the United Kingdom with 2.9 million passengers. The top three city destinations were London with 1.8 million guests, Riyadh (1.6 million), and Mumbai (1.2 million).
Dubai International Airport has been ranked 6th most connected airport while Heathrow is rated 12th globally by aviation consultancy firm Cirium.
Dubai is also a popular destination among Western Europeans as 1.89 million people visited the emirate during the first half of 2024.
According to British Airways, return flights from London Heathrow to Dubai start from £439 (Dh2,110) and flights to Abu Dhabi, which joined the British carrier’s network earlier this year, start from £390 (Dh1,880). Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways also operates direct flights to London.