World's best city for New Year's eve celebrations? Dubai wins

Residents planning to cut a ticket for exotic destinations to ring in the New Year may want to put those travel plans on hold just yet.

A new online trends report conducted by travel portal Kayak.com has seen Dubai emerge as the top choice for holidaymakers to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

The emirate beat contenders including Rio de Janeiro, Chicago and Barcelona to grab the top spot, with a 70 per cent year-on-year increase in flight searches for Dubai for the New Year break.

Over the past few years, Dubai has set Guinness World Records in celebrating the big event, with the 2014 occasion saw the city clinch title for the ‘World’s Largest LED-Illuminated Façade’ on Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

The Downtown Dubai New Year’s Eve Gala packed a dazzling never-before-seen show of fireworks, LED light and laser beam displays.

The event was also live streamed on YouTube with four different camera angles including an aerial view from three drones, for a 3D effect.

Additionally, 'live' feeds of the event were telecast over major international channels reaching billions of people around the world.

The 2014 celebration saw another record set when organisers set off a six-minute extravaganza that stretched across 100km of shoreline, including The Palm Jumeirah and the World Islands, with 400,000 fireworks being set off from 400 locations.

The feat saw 79,651 shells fired on New Year’s Eve, at a rate of almost 80K shells per minute and 1,332 fireworks per second.

Adding to this master effort was a technological marvel that created a ‘sunrise’ at midnight, with a flying falcon taking off into the horizon as the world’s largest pyrotechnic flag in the sky came to life, stretching across 29,250 square meters.

While there is no word as yet on what Dubai has in store for the masses this year, 2016 celebrations are expected to be just as spectacular, say residents.

Other cities for NYE 2016…

Those of you, who are eager to hop on a plane for ringing in the New Year, Kayak.com’s top 10 list places Cartagena, Colombia in second place, after Dubai, known for its ‘fireworks across the city, wild street celebrations and all-night dancing’, it says.

Barcelona comes in at number three, with the company’s hacker tip stating the top draw is ‘a free celebration next to Montjuic’s Magic Fountain’.

The capital of Iceland, Reykjavik, is at number four, followed by Tokyo rounding off the top five spots.

North America saw three destinations flagged, with Atlanta at number six, followed by Chicago at number nine and Vancouver, Canada at the last spot.

South America saw Santiago at number seven and Rio de Janeiro at number eight.

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