Dubai International's customer count increased 6.1 percent last year to 70.5 million, making it the top hub worldwide for cross-border passengers, a title held by Heathrow for decades.

Owner Dubai Airports predicts the facility will overtake the total tally at its London rival, 73.4 million in 2014, this year to become No 1 in the Europe, Africa and Middle East region.

Transit hub

The passenger count, and with it retail receipts, is surging as local carrier Emirates builds Dubai into a transit hub for travel between Europe, the eastern US, Asia, Africa and the Middle East with a mammoth collection of wide-body jets that includes the largest fleet of Airbus Group NV A380s.

To help boost its appeal to Chinese shoppers, Dubai Duty Free has hired 448 mandarin speakers and installed signs in the language, and accepts yuan and China Union paycards.