New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS): Out of the 8.36 million international overnight visitors that Dubai welcomed in the first six months of 2019, a whopping 997,000 visitors were from India, according to data released by Dubai Tourism on Tuesday.

In terms of volume, the number of international tourists to Dubai grew three per cent compared to the same period last year.

Dubai continued to drive booking interest from Indians on a mass scale largely due to high-impact delivery of segment and season-specific campaigns across tier-1 and tier-2 cities.

From focused "family" or "couple" oriented promotions to Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan-led global #BeMyGuest campaign, Dubai invested heavily on promoting tourism.

At an audience penetration level, the travel share of Indian families with children rose by a substantial 10 percentage points from 24 to 34 per cent, Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing said.

"Tourism is one of the cornerstones of Dubai's diversified economic growth, and we measure success based on our ability to aggressively advance towards our goal to be the number one most visited and most preferred city," Helal Saeed Almarri, Director General, Dubai Tourism, said in a statement.

"The consequent rise in value creation opportunities, and more inclusive sector participation are core priorities, as we equally strive to sustainably grow GDP contribution.

"Our first half results are a particularly encouraging reflection of our progress towards this ambition and underline the effectiveness of our diversified market outreach with holistic ‘awareness to booking' cycle content amplification and audience delivery, through a deeply networked ecosystem of global partners, industry stakeholders and government enablers," Almarri added.