Dubai: Of the $420 million (Dh1.5 billion) Dubai directly makes from sport per year golf is worth a majority 30 per cent at $131 million, it was announced on Wednesday.
These findings — revealed on the sidelines of the European Tour’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates — come from a Deloitte report carried out over the last 12 months (September to September), which was commissioned by Falcon and Associates and Dubai Sports Council.
It was also announced that $38 million of golf’s total income for Dubai comes from golf tourism, with international visitors contributing 10 per cent of Dubai’s total 410,000 rounds of golf per year played over the emirates’ nine clubs and 11 courses.
Events, such as the DP World Tour Championship, also contribute $80 million to the total income golf brings to Dubai.
Nick Tarratt, director of the European Tour’s Dubai office, said the statistics proved the importance of golf to the emirate and that the report would help the sport’s growth locally going forward.
“This report will be a real catalyst to bring the industry together to make real strides in collaborative decisions,” said Tarratt. “Over the past 25 years since the European Tour first came to the region in 1989 we have only been able to work on rounds of golf from local, regional and international visitors.
“But now we have a huge platform from which to see the significance and with full statistics and support from sponsors and the government it will be impressive to see how much further we can go. So, these are exciting times and this is great evidence for golf to take to the government and get some real buy in.”
Tarratt added that this first of its kind report wouldn’t be conducted annually going forward, but every three years. He also said he hoped the report would prompt all benefactors of golf — like airlines, hotels and tourism boards — to unite in order to increase the $38 million made from international golfing visitors.
“Collaboration is going on at the highest level and I believe following on from this you’ll see all parties coming together with tailored golf packages. It’s now on the agenda, and this is the catalyst to take it locally, regionally and internationally. Dialogue will come now [that] we have these statistics.”
Elaborating on why Emirati golfers haven’t emerged from what is clearly a burgeoning sports industry, Tarratt said: “There’s probably a little bit of disappointment that in 25 years the legacy isn’t quite as much as we’d like it to be, but this is a priority now that we have the European Tour’s Performance Institute up and running at Jumeirah Golf Estates. Hopefully now, you will see more joined up thinking from the local industry to put us on a more structured pathway going forward.”
