World Travel Awards Honour Abu Dhabi

The World Travel Awards held in London last Sunday saw the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority walk away with the title of the World’s Leading Tourist Board.

Nearly 800 tourism and travel industry top guns were in attendance for what is considered to be the sector’s most important to award ceremony. A vote was carried out amongst 180,000 industry professionals, which was the events largest in its 16-year history, as they selected winners in 200 different categories.

Deputy director general of ADTA Ahmed Hussein spoke at World Travel Market and described the World’s Leading Tourist Board award as the greatest honour which could be given to his organisation.

Mr Hussein was thrilled that the ADTA had been recognised amongst his peers for its level of excellence which contributes to develop Abu Dhabi as one of the leading tourism destinations in the world.

He said that the city always enjoys popularity amongst business travellers but being recognised as a leisure destination is an added bonus. He added that the destination is expecting several new hotels to open their doors in the near future, including the Qasr al Sarab, which will be located in the centre of the emirate’s Empty Quarter. A mere 240kms from Abu Dhabi, the Empty Quarter boasts being the world’s largest uninterrupted body of sand.

Abu Dhabi is also the host of a number of important events scheduled for 2010. These Abu Dhabi international events will include the 20th anniversary of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, the first Abu Dhabi International Triathlon and the World Green Tourism Congress, set for the UAE capital in December 2010. Also, it is now one of a handful of cities around the world which can boast having the very glitzy Formula 1 race.

According to ADTA, Abu Dhabi is expected to receive the same number of tourist as last year, with about 1.5 million visitors staying in hotels. The tourism organisation is aiming to increase next year’s numbers by 10%, and a 15% rise is predicted for 2011 and 2012, with a total of 2.3 million hotel guests.

The World Travel Awards have been particularly good for the emirate this year as the Abu Dhabi-based airline Etihad also won two awards at the ceremonies.

The carrier was awarded the World’s Leading First Class and the World’s Leading Airline.

It would appear that Abu Dhabi is finally coming out of the shadow of its larger sister Dubai and benefiting from large infrastructure investments such as the soon to be opened Ferrari theme park, a huge red logo shaped building adjacent to the F1 race track featuring rides and everything about the famous Italian sports car.