The Walt Disney Company has announced that it will be building the first Disney theme park resort in the Middle East. It will be located on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
This will be the seventh Disney resort in the world and the first in the Middle East.
The company says that the new resort will combine well-known Disney universes and characters with the cultural characteristics of the emirate, including its coastal nature and architectural traditions. The project will be fully supported by the government of Abu Dhabi, and Miral, a top entertainment and leisure company in the UAE capital, will be in charge of the development and construction. The creative teams at Disney Imagineering will be in charge of the design and the ideas behind it.
Abu Dhabi is a place where history and progress meet. We are preserving our cultural heritage while creating the future of global tourism and entertainment,' said Miral Chairman Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak.
Yas Island is already known as a world-class entertainment destination, home to Ferrari World, Yas Waterworld, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi and the Yas Marina Circuit Formula 1 race track.
The addition of the Disney brand is expected to make the region much more appealing to tourists from around the world. The UAE is in a great position because it is close to a lot of international markets. A third of the world's population lives within a four-hour flight of the UAE. More than 120 million passengers pass through the Abu Dhabi and Dubai aviation hubs every year, making the country one of the largest transfer hubs in the world.
The Disney Resort project in Abu Dhabi will be a new tourist attraction and an important step towards making the UAE a popular place for families and people who like to go on holiday. The resort is expected to attract millions of visitors every year and create thousands of jobs.
We don't have a launch date yet, but we're already doing studies to make sure everything is ready. In the next few months, Disney and Miral will give more information about the idea for the park, the different areas and the new characters that will be there.