Tag Archives: Dubai

In keeping with the longest running retail tourism festival, Dubai shopping festival which attracts the domestic visitors as well as international travellers year on year, this year with almost every source market opening up also brings in a lot more events to be enjoyed by the visitors. Some of the most interesting   Dubai Calendar, the official listing platform for events in the city, is gearing up to kick-start the 2023 line-up of events and live entertainment with an incredible range of music, culture and sport events which will take place throughout the city during January and February 2023. These include a host of epic live entertainment events such as Dubai Beats and Cirque Du Soleil, and sporting spectacles including Dubai Desert Classic, and much more. Dubai Shopping Festival have collaborated with Core Direction to create the region’s first ever camping, music and movement festival, COREUNITY. The event will be taking place in Hatta from 13th-15th January, working with the team who presented Yoga At The Top – Burj Khalifa and Movement & Music at the Dubai Opera Garden, to deliver an epic weekend of fun, wellness and adventure. For a night full of laughter with some of the region’s leading comedians and actors, head to Dubai World Trade Centre’s Sheikh Rashid Hall for The Sixth World War. The hilarious performance will feature stars including Hassan Al Balam, Zahra Arafat, Muhammad Al Ramadan, Fahd Al Bannai and Abdulaziz Al Nassar, and will be taking place from 13th-14th January. Get your mystery-solving hat on with a unique game of uncovering clues as the globally renowned Murder Mystery experience arrives at Al Seef Heritage Hotel Dubai and will run until 12th March. Be …

The Estonia Ministry of Foreign Affairs has mandated VFS Global to provide visa services on their behalf to the residents of the United Arab Emirates. The contract was signed on 05 December 2022 by Mr. Jonatan Vseviov, Secretary General Estonia Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Mr. Chris Dix, Head – Business Development, VFS Global. The Estonia Visa Application Centres in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, which opened their doors to applicants on 19 December 2022, will accept short stay visa applications to Estonia for tourism, business, visiting family and friends, and applications by family members of EU, EEA and Swiss nationals, who exercise the Right of Free Movement. Sherif Shazly, Chief Operating Officer – Middle East & North Africa, VFS Global, said, “We are excited to be bringing Estonia visa services closer to home for UAE residents through our centres in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We have been associated with the Estonia Ministry of Foreign Affairs for since 2015, and appreciate their continued faith in us.” Applicants can also choose from a range of conveniences when applying for their visa to Estonia, including completing the visa application process from home by opting for VFS Global’s Visa At Your Doorstep service, or from a plush lounge ambience at the Platinum Lounge at the centres in both Emirates. There is also a range of additional services to choose from such as Prime Time service to submit applications outside business hours, courier return of processed documents, form filling assistance, among others. VFS Global currently offers Estonia visa services in 13 countries through a network of 100+ Visa Application Centres.

A new interactive #DubaiDestinations guide issued  by Brand Dubai, the creative arm of the Government of Dubai Media Office (GDMO), invites residents and travellers to explore the city’s beautiful outdoors with its extensive Picnic and Camping Guide. The Ultimate Picnic and Camping Guide lists a range of Dubai’s outdoor destinations and sites, offering tips for barbecuing, camping, and making the most of the beautiful winter weather. It includes a checklist of the essential items and equipment to carry when camping on your own. The guide lists online platforms for buying or renting camp gear and picnic kits and a list of Dubai’s best homegrown businesses offering ready-to-use picnic and camping F&B kits. The camping destinations in the guide include Hatta, Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, and deserts across the city, such as Al Qudra, Al Awir, Al Ruwayaah, and the Half Desert Road. The guide’s picnic spots include beach and pond parks, lakes, natural escapes, scenic rest areas, mountaintop picnic spots and beach and desert locations. The public and private destinations listed in the guide represent Dubai’s vast diversity of outdoor offerings that define its unique destination experience and make it the best city for living. The areas featured in the guide include Dubai Creek Park, Al Barari Nature Escape, Wadi Hatta Park, Al Marmoom Lakes, Safa Park, Leem Rest Area, Jumeirah Beach, Al Khazzan Park and many more. The guide also lists companies organising picnics. In addition, it lists businesses that help set up camping tents, camper vans, and even outdoor cinemas for groups of all sizes and budgets. Fatma Al Mulla, City Branding Executive at Brand Dubai, said: “Our interactive winter guide, ‘Dubai: The Ultimate Picnic and Camping Guide’, …

A unique pop-up event organised as part of the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) is inviting people to experience a nostalgic recreation of Dubai in the 80s. A new addition to the DSF, organised by the Dubai Festivals and Retail Establishment (DFRE), the 10-day event, held at the Last Exit Al Khawaneej, transports visitors into a visual representation of Dubai in the 80’s and early 90s. The event is one of a series of attractions and experiences featured in the #DubaiDestinations winter campaign. The Dubai 80s event aims to capture the moment in time when Dubai was on the cusp of pivotal change. Apart from being a defining era globally, the 80s were a decade that raised Dubai and the UAE’s profile on the international map. It was a time when the country embarked on a transformative journey that made it a leading global city. Dubai 80s will explore the defining era of the city’s past, with vintage photo galleries showing pictures of Dubai before its transformation into a global metropolis, photo booths, shows, anime and live performances, old-school gaming arcades, and classic cars, all offering a blast from the past. “The event is an attempt to create a heartwarming experience of life in the decade that was a turning point in Dubai’s history. Dubai 80s invites visitors to look back and reflect on a decade in which the seeds of our current prosperity and growth were sown. Looking back, especially at the 80s and early 90s, is fascinating as this was such a transformational era for Dubai,” said Ahmed Al Khaja, CEO of Dubai Festivals and Retail Establishment. “Dubai developed rapidly within the span of just a few years. The …

Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) has hosted the third Dubai Gastronomy Forum, the major industry event focused on engaging Dubai’s key F&B stakeholders, showcasing new gourmet concepts and content series, highlighting key events and culinary happenings with a briefing of Dubai Food Festival 2023 – all further elevating Dubai’s position as a leading global destination for food tourism. The event, which was attended by 150 gastronomy industry culinary stakeholders, hotel groups, destinations, key industry specialists, and F&B partners, was hosted by DET and took place at Caesars Palace Bluewaters Dubai. The Gastronomy Forum, part of DET’s Gastronomy Always On (GAON) initiative, further reaffirmed Dubai’s standing as an international hub for gastronomy, and a beacon for visionary restaurateurs, chefs, discerning foodies, epicurean travellers and culinary aficionados. During the forum, DET shared opportunities with industry stakeholders in the gastronomy sector of forthcoming calendar of events, new content series, activations and partnerships taking place to support and promote the F&B industry, with the aim of further strengthening the city’s dynamic ecosystem of more than 13,000 restaurants and cafés and rallying their support in further enhancing the city’s reputation as a year-round global gastronomy hub. As the industry looks forward to 2023, DET also unveiled new details of the 10th anniversary edition of the much-anticipated Dubai Food Festival (DFF).  Taking place from 21 April – 7 May 2023, DFF 2023 will showcase the depth, diversity and creativity of Dubai’s gastronomy offering through an expanded programme of events and activities, celebrating home-grown concepts, Emirati and international cuisine, as well as global trends and the chefs, culinary pioneers, gourmet thought leaders and tastemakers that continue to reflect and inspire Dubai. During the 17-day DFF …

The Retail Summit, an annual event for leaders providing unprecedented access to hear from global retail giants on the future and movement of the retail industry, announces its notable speaker lineup and agenda for 2023. The highly-anticipated two-day Summit remains the ultimate face-to-face, industry networking event, hosted at two iconic locations including Atlantis, The Palm and the soon-to-open Atlantis, The Royal on the 14 and 15 of March. Over the course of two days, the top echelon of both locally and internationally-renowned retailers will disperse into a two-stream agenda focusing on the critical issues within the global retailer’s boardrooms. The retail visionary speakers will include icon Tommy Hilfiger, Michael Ward, CEO of Harrods, Kristina Blahnik, CEO of Manolo Blahnik, Jo Malone, Founder of Jo Loves, Tom Athron, CEO of Fortnum & Mason, and Seth Ellison, EVP & Chief Commercial Officer of Levi Strauss & Co., to name a few. The third edition of the event will see these retail trailblazers on stage sharing their pioneering stories, paired with insight and innovative concepts through panel discussions dedicated to creating engaging, high-level learning experiences. Dishing details and debating matters of the retail industry, the speakers will focus on three agenda pillars of the event; sustainability, customer engagement and new technologies. Session spotlight topics include keynote presentations on “Cultivating Communities” led by Katrine Lee Larson, CEO of Copenhagen Cartel, “Company Culture” led by Rodney Lam, CEO of Daily Paper, and “Customer Centricity” led by Michael Kliger, CEO of Mytheresa. Panel discussions will open up the floor to conversations on “Customer Centricity” led by Marcella Wartenbergh, CEO of AWWG, “Sustainability” led by Livia Lee, CEO of lala Berlin; and also Victoria Prew, Founder & …

At the annual ‘city briefing’ His Excellency Issam Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM), said: “Inspired by our visionary leadership, 2022 has been a transformative year for developing and broadening Dubai’s global appeal, designed to keep the destination top-of-mind and to cater to the varied needs and tastes of international travellers. With the world on the move again, our ability to quickly react, adapt, evolve and tap into existing and new segments of travellers is key to Dubai’s efforts to leverage and benefit from a rapidly and radically evolving global tourism landscape. We have ensured a steady influx of international visitors by offering more value than any comparable destination. We will maintain our competitive edge through our strong public-private partnerships, expansion of the diverse destination offering and constant launching of innovative initiatives and international campaigns to showcase Dubai as a ‘must-visit’ destination, as well as cement its position as one of the most accessible and liveable cities in the world.” Data showed that Dubai welcomed 11.4 million international overnight visitors between January and October, an impressive year-on-year increase of 134%, taking the city further on its journey to becoming the world’s most visited destination. 11.4 million international overnight visitors who arrived in Dubai between January and October 2022 represented a quantum leap over the 4.88 million visitors that the city welcomed for the same period in 2021. The numbers are close to the pre-pandemic record of 13.50 million international visitors in the first ten months of 2019. Dubai’s international tourism arrivals significantly outperformed other major global destinations, giving Dubai a head start on post-pandemic recovery. Average hotel occupancy in Dubai between January-October 2022 stood at …

The special one-off concert will take place at Dubai’s Coca-Cola Arena on Friday 27 January 2023 and will feature two and a half hours of new and reimagined arrangements from the Oscar-winning composer’s stellar back catalogue, all spectacularly recreated on stage by Zimmer himself, together with a large orchestra and complemented by Hans Zimmer’s magnificent live band and dancers. Hans Zimmer Live is being brought to the United Arab Emirates by Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) as part of its Dubai Presents series and will be one of the closing shows of the Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF), which runs across the city from December 2022 to 29 January 2023. Hans Zimmer commented: “I’m thrilled to bring Hans Zimmer Live to Dubai for the very first time. As one of the world’s most exciting and dynamic cities that’s home to over 200 nationalities, this is a great opportunity to speak to a multicultural global audience in the universal language of music. It seems fitting to bring our show to such an extraordinary city, and treat its people to an unforgettable evening of music and entertainment!” Issam Kazim, CEO, Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing, commented: “Hans Zimmer is one of the all-time music greats and it’s an honour that Dubai will be the first place in the Middle East to host his renowned live show. Hosting this concert further reinforces Dubai’s position as a global events hub for award-winning international artists to perform and we will continue to work with our stakeholders to further enhance our event offerings in line with the vision of His Highness, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister …

Emirates has announced plans to add an additional daily direct flight between Dubai and Colombo, starting from 1 December 2022, to cater to the seasonal increase in the demand for travel. The additional service, operating as EK648/EK649, will increase the number of daily flights between the two cities to three, including two direct flights and one operating via the Maldivian capital, Male. Emirates’ second daily flight will operate direct between Dubai and Colombo, except during 16 to 30 December, when the service from Dubai to Colombo will stop over in Male. From 1 to 15 December and from 31 December to 26 March, EK648 will depart Dubai at 16:10hrs daily and arrive in Colombo at 21:55hrs, all times local. Flight EK648 will be routed via Male from 16th to 30th December, and will during that period, depart Dubai at 10.30hrs and arrive in Male at 14.45hrs. It will then depart from Male  at 17.15hrs and arrive in Colombo at 19.15hrs. Throughout the period from 1 December to 26 March, flight EK649 is scheduled to depart Colombo at 02:55hrs and arrive in Dubai at 05:55hrs. *All times are local. Emirates operates its modern Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in a three-class configuration on flights to Colombo, offering private suites in First Class, lie flat seats in Business Class and spacious seats in Economy Class.  Travellers to and from Sri Lanka benefit from Emirates’ award-winning service and industry-leading products in the air and on the ground across all classes, with regionally-inspired dishes and complimentary beverages and the airline’s ice inflight entertainment system which offers up to 5,000 channels of on-demand entertainment in over 40 languages, including movies, TV shows, and an extensive musical library …

Air Canada is further expanding its service between Dubai and Toronto, with flights initially increasing from four to five times weekly from 31 October 2022. This expansion represents an additional 60% capacity, with Boeing 777-300ER aircraft replacing Boeing 787-9 aircraft on the route. The airline is set to further increase its Dubai to Toronto service from five to six times weekly from 8 January 2023 and then to daily from 26 March 2023. Air Canada flights from Dubai to Toronto are operated with Boeing 777-300ER aircraft that can accommodate 400 passengers, with a choice of three classes of service: Air Canada Signature Class featuring lie-flat seats, Premium Economy and Economy Class. Seats are available for booking at aircanada.com, via the Air Canada App, Air Canada’s Contact Centres and travel agencies. “We are excited to announce this increase in our services between Dubai and Toronto,” said Deepu Cyriac, Air Canada, Country Manager UAE. “These additional frequencies will provide even more flight options for our customers in the UAE and the possibility to connect via our Toronto hub to 69 onward destinations across the Americas. We look forward to welcoming our customers on board.”   Dubai – Toronto Schedule   Flight From Departure To Arrival Frequency Dates of Operation   AC 057   Dubai   01:30   Toronto   07:20 Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat Until January 7, 2023   AC 056   Toronto   21:25   Dubai   19:35 (+1) Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat, Sun Until January 7, 2023   AC 057   Dubai   01:30   Toronto   07:20 Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat, Sun January 8 – March 25, 2023   AC 056   Toronto   21:25   Dubai …