Dubai: Four out of five people on the streets of Dubai could be tourists, staying in any of Dubai's 420 hotels and serviced apartments.

According to the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM)'s statistics, the remaining one is a resident.

However, since they do not stay long enough, the city remains less congested than the statistics would suggest.

Dubai hotels and hotel apartments played host to an all-time record 6.5 million guests, generating revenues in excess of Dh11 billion last year. For a city with 1.4 million inhabitants, this translates to a whopping 464 per cent or 4.64 times the ratio of tourists to a resident.

"Tourism sector's overall share in Dubai's economy has gone up to 30 per cent reducing the shares of oil, real estate and construction services, including 19 per cent in direct contribution," Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, said.

Dubai has about 285 hotels and 135 serviced apartments with a capacity of nearly 35,000 rooms, according to the DTCM, the emirate's tourism regulatory body.

The actual number of tourists would be much higher as most visiting friends and relatives (VFR) are not recorded in the 6.5 million tourists list, which is based on the hotels' guest registration.

Travel and tourism industry in the UAE is expected to have posted Dh96.8 billion of economic activity last year, growing to Dh170.7 billion by 2016, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), a global tourism outfit.

This is about 18 per cent of the total travel and tourism demand generated in the Middle East, that last year reached $147.56 billion. The WTTC ranked the UAE 38th among 174 economies.

WTTC has pegged the growth of travel and tour-ism sector in the UAE at about five per cent between 2007 and 2016, it is higher than the Middle East's 4.4 per cent and global average growth of 4 per cent.

Travel and tourism is expected to have generated 8.3 per cent of total exports, or Dh37.1 billion last year, growing in nominal terms to Dh62 billion in 2016.

Capital investment in travel and tourism is estimated to have crossed Dh30 billion, or 28.2 per cent of total investment attracted by the UAE. By 2016, the WTTC estimates it to reach Dh55.2 billion.

"In 2006, one in 11.5 jobs will have generated by the travel and tourism economy. The travel and tourism economy accounts for 8.7 per cent of global employment," WTTC report said.

"Today there are 76.7 million travel and tourism industry jobs and these will rise to 89.5 million by 2016."

In the UAE, travel and tourism employment is estimated at 294,000 jobs in 2006, 11.7 per cent of total employment or 1 in every 8.5 jobs, the report said.