Abu Dhabi entrepreneurs are setting new regional standards for sustainable leisure and tourism experiences

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Abu Dhabi, 8 January / WAM / The Emirate of Abu Dhabi has established itself as a leading global tourist and cultural destination, as it embraces a wide range of historical and cultural monuments, and natural destinations that include an enchanting spectrum of gardens, green oases, towering mountains, deserts, islands, picturesque beaches and Ghaf forests.

It also hosts the most prominent international museums and contemporary arts institutions, along with ancient forts and archaeological sites, some of which have been registered as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, in addition to sports and entertainment destinations, and many hotels and restaurants, making it a favorite global destination for travel enthusiasts and culture enthusiasts.

The emirate is the ideal choice for holding regional and international conferences, exhibitions, trade fairs and major sporting events, as the city annually hosts the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit, the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, the Abu Dhabi Food Festival, the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and many others.

Entrepreneurs have found in this charming panorama of tourist destinations fertile material for competition in attracting tourists and visitors to the emirate through pioneering tourism projects that introduce these destinations and present them in a bright image befitting the past, present and future of the emirate. Therefore, the dynamic tourism scene in Abu Dhabi provides golden opportunities for investors through many initiatives that highlight the emirate as a global tourist destination.

The sixth edition of the “The Most Beautiful Winter in the World” campaign constitutes a unique platform for introducing initiatives that support the domestic tourism sector and enhancing the country’s position as one of the most important tourist destinations in the world.

Many local and international tourism companies have emerged in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, working within the strategy of promoting tourism in the Emirate, including Premier Travel and Tourism Company, which was launched in Abu Dhabi a decade ago and was founded by the young Emirati Saud Mohammed Sultan Al Darmaki, who is considered the first Emirati entrepreneur to promote sustainable tourism, and the winner of the Best Arab Tourism Content Award on the YouTube platform in 2019 at the Middle East level from the Tourism Media Centre.

Al Darmaki adopted the principle of sustainable tourism, translating his love for the popular heritage and ancient heritage of the country, through the establishment of this institution, and developed his project by offering the latest means, services and ideas through a group of diverse packages to serve tourism in the country in general, and Abu Dhabi in particular, by highlighting these ideas and focusing on sustainable tourism, by paying attention to heritage tourism, business tourism, incentives, etc., and to show the finest aspects of beauty in these tourist destinations that Abu Dhabi embraces.

The project was financially and morally supported by the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, and since its launch, it has sought to sign agreements and deals with strategic partners in its field of investment work, including foreign and local companies.

Al Darmaki provided his experience in the field of tourism to university and college students, through courses that summarize work in the tourism sector and give them skills to deal in this field, with the aim of supporting the youth of the Emirates who are about to work in the tourism sector and providing them with experiences that will facilitate their work in the future.

One of the well-established companies in the tourism sector in Abu Dhabi is Miral Company, which was founded in May 2011, and whose Board of Directors is currently chaired by His Excellency Mohammed Khalifa Al Mubarak. It is committed to providing sustainable and long-term value through its projects that contribute to enhancing Abu Dhabi’s global position in the tourism sector. Since its establishment, it has played an important role in the rapid growth of the entertainment and tourism sector in Abu Dhabi, through the development of innovative projects that contribute to the development of a sustainable, diversified, and globally integrated economy in Abu Dhabi. Long term.

Miral has built a number of the most prominent entertainment facilities in the Emirates, provided experiences that were the first of their kind in the world and contributed to breaking records.

During 2022, it announced a group of projects under construction worth more than 13 billion dirhams spread across Yas Island and the rest of Abu Dhabi. Today, Miral is responsible for designing, building, developing, operating and managing a group of destinations and immersive experiences that attract visitors from all over the world, in addition to accelerating the pace of economic diversification in the emirate, and has also provided three thousand job opportunities in the entertainment and tourism sector.

Three subsidiaries operate under the Miral umbrella: Miral Destinations, Miral Experiences, and Yas Asset Management.

Miral 2024 launched its comprehensive sustainability strategy, which represents a major step in its commitment to excellence in the environmental and social fields, and aims to achieve its ambitious goal of setting a new regional standard for sustainable entertainment and tourism experiences by 2030.

The strategy focuses on reducing the environmental footprint, encouraging sustainable tourism practices in Abu Dhabi, and providing educational and purposeful entertainment experiences.

In October 2025, Miral announced that both Yas Island and Saadiyat Island had recorded record numbers in the number of visits during the summer season.

This performance contributed to strengthening their position as two main options for families and visitors coming from different parts of the world, as Yas Island achieved a 15% increase in the number of visits, and Saadiyat Island witnessed a 14% increase in the number of visits to its cultural and hotel experiences during the summer.

Entities working in the tourism sector, whether governmental or private, are cooperating to increase the attraction of visitors to the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, as hotel establishments in the emirate attracted 4.4 million guests during the first nine months of 2025, with a growth rate of 2.9% compared to the same period in 2024, and hotel revenues increased by 18.2% to reach 5.85 billion dirhams, which confirms the success of the tourism sector in the emirate in achieving its goals, in line with With the Abu Dhabi Tourism Strategy 2030, which aims to attract 39.3 million visitors annually, provide 178,000 new jobs in the sector, and increase hotel capacity to 50,000 rooms, in addition to raising the sector’s contribution to the emirate’s gross domestic product to 90 billion dirhams by the end of the current decade.