Gastronomy Industry Report 2022

This comprehensive study provides key insights and high-value data showcasing the strength and diversity of the city’s food services sector, based on high-level research including DET’s Global Brand Tracker, the Dubai International Visitor Survey, local surveys and thousands of customer reviews. Dubai’s reputation as one of the world’s most popular tourism destinations and multicultural cities has helped create a dynamic and thriving gastronomic scene unlike any other on the planet. The sheer diversity of cuisine on offer reflects the city’s status as one of the world’s great cultural melting pots, with more than 200 nationalities living together in harmony. As a key driver of the global tourism sector, food tourism has a major role to play in accelerating the industry’s growth in the coming years. This report provides vital data and insights on current and future trends in the gastronomy sector and provides stakeholders from across the city’s gastronomy ecosystem with a clear roadmap for the industry’s development moving forward, in line with broader efforts to deliver the “Only in Dubai” experience to visitors from across the world.

Report Methodology

The data covered in the report from four different DET studies and online sources.

DUBAI DINING EXPERIENCE [ONLINE REVIEWS]

User generated content is a growing form of content creation with online reviews being on top of that list. Reviewers love to express their dining or delivery experience and pass recommendations to fellow food lovers. Collectively, those reviews form an “insights rig” being in text format, which requires the tools and technology to extract it out and draw what refer to as Dubai Dining Experience. Based on our expertise in tourism analytics, DET leveraged cutting edge deep learning to zoom into specific granular topics and the sentiment they were expressed by to structure this content into a visually meaningful report.

DUBAI INTERNATIONAL VISITORS SURVEY [DIVS]

Most visitor descriptive data in this report come from Dubai International Visitors Survey [DIVS] which is an ongoing survey that covers a sample of approximately 60,000 visitors a year, to analyse changes in traveller profiles and behaviours that impact levels of destination affinity, brand perception, and economic contribution of international tourists in Dubai. DIVS is a 20-minutes, face-to-face digital survey, administered routinely,across key tourist catchments across the city. Locations include airports and tourist attraction zones [e.g., malls, entertainment areas, in-city leisure attractions etc.].

DUBAI BRAND HEALTH TRACKER [BHT]

DET routinely pulse-checks the strength of the city brand as a holiday destination of choice within each key source market vis-à-vis top-tier global peers. Online interviews are conducted via panel in key source markets and emerging potential markets for Dubai to check the current imagery of Dubai among potential travel candidates, their motivations and barriers if any to travel to the emirate. The survey is currently run twice a year with 23 markets at covering 16,000 respondents in its last run in H1- 2022. Qualifying respondents for the 20-minute survey need to be at least 18 years, have flown an international trip by air in the last 36 months, have a say in the decision making while selecting a holiday destination and been residing in the country for at least two years.

GASTRONOMY ALWAYS ON STUDY

This research study aimed at investigating the behaviour, attitude, preferences and demand of UAE residents with regards to Dubai’s gastronomic offerings. The research consists of a total of ~3000 interviews across two waves in early 2022.

SEPTEMBER 2022 Copyright: Business Intelligence and Reporting [DET]