The UAE Ministry of Economy and Tourism has launched the country’s first unified federal tourism identity and a new multi-emirate travel platform as part of efforts to encourage longer stays and higher visitor spending.

The Visit UAE identity is designed to present the country as a single, integrated tourism destination while bringing together the individual attractions and experiences of all seven emirates under one national offering.

The ministry also launched the UAE Grand Tour, a platform developed with Rocket International, tourism authorities across the seven emirates and private-sector operators.

The platform offers itineraries of up to 14 days covering more than one emirate, with routes spanning all seven emirates.

Visitors can search for and book programmes through travel-sector partners, while tour operators and travel agents can use dedicated tools to develop multi-emirate packages for international markets.

The itineraries cover family, cultural, nature-based and adventure tourism and include information on participating hotels, attractions, tourism experiences and transport services.

In a report published by state news agency WAM, Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism, said the initiatives were aimed at creating a more integrated national tourism offering.

“The launch of the ‘Visit UAE’ identity and the ‘UAE Grand Tour’ platform reflects the UAE’s commitment to further developing an advanced tourism sector and strengthening the country’s position as a global destination that helps shape the future of tourism,” Bin Touq said.

“Through ‘Visit UAE’, we are unifying the UAE’s national tourism offering and showcasing the diversity of destinations and experiences across the seven emirates, while the ‘UAE Grand Tour’ platform represents an integrated tourism product that encourages visitors to choose from a range of itineraries to explore more than one emirate and extend their stay,” he added.

The announcements were made during Arabian Travel Market 2026, held at Dubai World Trade Centre from September 14 to 17.

Bin Touq said the UAE was also continuing to strengthen its position in the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions sector, supported by infrastructure and an integrated network of facilities and services.

Visit UAE identity, Grant Tour support tour support UAE’s Tourism Strategy 2031

The initiatives form part of the UAE Tourism Strategy 2031, which targets increasing tourism’s contribution to GDP to Dhs450bn, attracting Dhs100bn in new tourism investment and reaching 40 million hotel guests annually by the next decade.

The ministry also announced plans to take its World’s Coolest Winter campaign into international markets for the first time.

Launched in 2020, the campaign has so far focused on encouraging residents and visitors already in the UAE to explore destinations across the country during the cooler months.

The international edition will target key overseas markets and promote desert and coastal experiences, adventure activities, festivals, events and city attractions, alongside the UAE’s mild winter climate.

The ministry said the expansion would strengthen links between World’s Coolest Winter, Visit UAE and multi-emirate tourism products such as the UAE Grand Tour, with the aim of attracting more international visitors and encouraging them to stay longer.

Read: Dubai hotel occupancy climbs to 66% in August as tourism picks up

flydubai Holidays has expanded its destination and product portfolio and is preparing to launch an upgraded digital platform as demand for holiday packages continues to grow, the airline said during Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2026 in Dubai.

The holidays division now offers packages across more than 100 destinations and 10,000 hotels, with options spanning different budgets and travel preferences.
Destinations include Almaty, Baku, Krabi, the Maldives, Tbilisi, Yerevan and Zanzibar.

flydubai Holidays said its upgraded digital platform would feature improved navigation, clearer content, better mobile responsiveness and a more streamlined booking journey.

Customers will also have access to improved search and filtering tools designed to make it easier to organise and manage holidays according to individual preferences.

Sudhir Sreedharan, DSVP of Commercial Operations at flydubai, said the holidays business continued to grow, supported by the airline’s expanding network and demand for more choice, flexibility and convenience.

He said demand for holiday packages was expected to continue through the upcoming winter season.

Passengers travelling to Dubai can also use flydubai’s stopover offering before continuing to other destinations.

Since March 2026, flydubai Holidays has recorded what the company described as a positive response to its Dubai stopover experience, which provides preferential rates on flights, hotels, attractions, activities and other services.

Nelson D’souza, VP of flydubai Holidays, said the company had seen consistent demand for city breaks and beach holidays, particularly from customers in the UAE, GCC and Central Asia.

He also pointed to growing interest in destinations across Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as fixed-itinerary packages, premium hotels and related services.
Baku, Krabi and Tivat have recorded some of the strongest growth, flydubai said.

The airline extended its seasonal Tivat route until October 23, while Bangkok, which launched with a daily service in July, is scheduled to increase to three daily flights from November 2026.

flydubai Holidays also offers fixed-itinerary packages at selected destinations, combining flights, hotel stays and excursions.

Dubai-listed parking operator Parkin Company has partnered with UAE payments provider uPay to allow customers to top up their Parkin wallets through more than 1,700 self-service kiosks across the country, the companies said on Thursday.

The service will allow customers to add funds using cash or credit cards, expanding Parkin’s payment options for users who do not rely exclusively on digital banking services.

uPay operates around 1,350 kiosks in Dubai, more than 150 each in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah and more than 50 in Ajman, according to the companies. The kiosks operate around the clock.

Parkin said the partnership would broaden access to its services while providing a lower-cost mechanism for handling cash payments and reducing reliance on more expensive collection methods.

“This partnership with uPay is driven by our commitment to expand accessibility and convenience across our payment ecosystem. The new cash-based top-up channel, which will be widely available, ensures that all segments of our customers can easily access Parkin services,” said Talal Alajmi, Parkin’s CTO.

Agreement to increase flexibility and broader access for Parkin customers

“By integrating uPay’s extensive kiosk network with Parkin’s digital payment infrastructure, we are extending the reach and flexibility of our payment ecosystem through a scalable, technology-enabled solution that strengthens operational efficiency and supports the continued growth of our platform and services across the UAE.”

The integration is currently available for Parkin wallet top-ups and forms part of the company’s wider strategy to expand payment channels and introduce new technology across its parking operations.

uPay chief eExecutive Umar Dombaev said the partnership was aimed at making everyday payment services more accessible.

“We are delighted to partner with Parkin in advancing a shared vision of delivering smarter, more accessible payment experiences across the UAE,” Dombaev said.

“At uPay, we see payments as an enabler of everyday life, and our focus has always been on removing barriers between people and the services they rely on. This collaboration reflects the power of strategic partnerships in creating practical, customer-centric solutions that improve convenience while supporting broader financial inclusion.”

The company manages about 268,000 paid parking spaces as of the end of the first half of 2026.

Under a 49-year concession agreement with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority, it has the exclusive right to operate about 203,000 public on- and off-street spaces and around 4,000 public multi-storey parking spaces. It also manages about 61,500 developer-owned spaces under partnership agreements.

The company said customers carried out 141 million parking transactions in 2025 through its network.

Parkin was established as a standalone company in December 2023 and listed on the Dubai Financial Market following its initial public offering in March 2024.
uPay operates more than 1,700 kiosks offering over 700 payment and digital services and processes more than 3.5 million transactions a month, according to the company.

The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) is set to return for its 15th edition on December 8, 2027, marking the revival of one of the region’s major cinema platforms with a renewed focus on Middle Eastern films and talent.

The Dubai Media Council announced the festival’s return on the final day of the Arab Media Summit in the presence of Her Highness Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairperson of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, along with ministers and Arab and international media leaders.

First launched in 2004, the festival ran for 14 editions and helped provide a platform for Arab filmmakers while establishing Dubai as a regional destination for the global film industry.

The revived festival will build on that legacy while adopting a new model reflecting changes in the film and creative production industries.

HE Mona Ghanem Al Marri, Vice Chairperson and Managing Director of the Dubai Media Council, said the festival was returning not to recreate the past, but to build on its legacy and respond to the transformation taking place across the region and global film industry.

The first edition of the festival’s new chapter will place particular emphasis on Middle Eastern cinema and talent, providing regional filmmakers and stories with greater access to international audiences and markets.

More than a film festival

The relaunched DIFF is also being positioned as an industry platform rather than solely a programme of screenings.

It will seek to connect filmmakers with producers, talent with investors and creative ideas with markets, while creating opportunities for partnerships and projects originating in Dubai.

Programmes and initiatives will bring together filmmakers, producers and other industry stakeholders to discuss new projects, industry trends and potential collaborations.

The move also forms part of Dubai’s broader efforts to develop its film and production industry and strengthen the contribution of the creative economy.

Al Marri said the ambition extends beyond staging a successful festival to supporting the development of the film industry, nurturing a new generation of talent and helping Arab stories reach global audiences.

Hesham Sultan Al Olama, CEO of the Dubai Films and Games Commission, said the festival’s return would create new opportunities for filmmakers and strengthen the international reach of regional cinema.

Further details on the 15th Dubai International Film Festival, including its programme and participating films, will be announced at a later date.

As AI adoption accelerates across the Gulf, the cybersecurity conversation is shifting from prevention alone to resilience, governance and the ability to respond at machine speed. For Sultan Mahmood Malik, chief security officer at Huawei Gulf North, the emerging risk is not one technology in isolation but the convergence of AI-powered attacks, cloud expansion, critical infrastructure exposure and increasingly interconnected digital systems.

In this interview, Malik discusses how AI is changing the economics of cyber threats, why boards need to treat resilience as a business responsibility, the growing sophistication of ransomware, and the security implications of the Gulf’s rapid investment in AI, cloud and data centres. He also explains why organisations should already be preparing for quantum-era risks and argues that cybersecurity frameworks will need to become more adaptive as the threat landscape evolves.

As companies across the UAE and Gulf accelerate their adoption of AI, what new cybersecurity risks are emerging that business leaders may still be underestimating?

Malicious actors are already using AI to automate reconnaissance, draft convincing phishing content and scale social engineering that once required real time and skill to execute. That changes the economics of cyber threats: work that used to take a determined adversary days or weeks can now run continuously, against many targets at once. Frontier AI models have shown strong vulnerability discovery capabilities, and on average the newly discovered vulnerabilities can be weaponised within four hours.

At the same time, as organisations deploy AI systems of their own, new categories of risk emerge around the models and data behind them. For example, prompt injection, data leakage and non-compliant outputs are active design considerations.

Huawei addresses these concerns by enhancing our secure-by-design approach with AI capabilities throughout the R&D process, leveraging harness engineering to strengthen our world-class vulnerability management capabilities and increasingly embedding native security capabilities into our solutions; all of these measures significantly strengthen our customers’ overall security posture. This reflects our broader approach of using AI for Security while ensuring Security for AI.

Furthermore, Huawei addresses AI security challenges through layered guardrails covering data security, model security, model risk management, application security and operations, which are built on four roots of trust: encryption engines, confidential computing, trusted computing and trusted interconnection.

This approach is backed by sustained investment. Huawei allocates around 5 per cent of its annual R&D investment to cybersecurity and privacy protection, amounting to approximately $10bn over the past decade. These efforts are supported by more than 3,800 cybersecurity and privacy protection specialists worldwide.

Huawei is talking about moving from cyber defence to cyber resilience. What does that shift mean in practical terms for a CEO or board, and how should companies measure whether their businesses can actually withstand and recover from an attack?

For years, cybersecurity conversations centred on prevention – firewalls, detection tools and patching faster than malicious actors could exploit. That mindset assumed a determined threat could eventually be kept out.

But genuine resilience starts from a different premise: that disruption will happen, and the real test is how quickly the business can detect and contain it while continuing to operate.

For Huawei, built-in resilience means moving from post-incident repair to active architectural defence. Security frameworks must be adaptive and capable of automated evolution, helping critical business operations remain online even during machine-speed attacks.

For a CEO or board, that shifts cybersecurity from a function owned by IT into a governance responsibility owned by the business. It means asking which services genuinely cannot go down, how long the organisation can tolerate an outage before it becomes existential, and whether recovery has actually been tested under realistic conditions. Ultimately, those preparations determine whether an organisation proves resilient or becomes a victim.

Measurement follows from those questions, and it starts before an incident happens. Was the environment secure by design, with native security capabilities rather than added afterwards? How agile are the controls, and can they detect and adapt to new attack patterns? Key indicators include recovery time and recovery point objectives for critical systems, the time required to detect and contain an incident, and the results of regular simulation exercises. Together, these provide measurable evidence of resilience.

Resilience is proven under pressure, and boards that ask for evidence of both preparation and recovery, not just assurance of protection, are asking the right question.

Ransomware remains one of the biggest threats to business continuity. Are attacks in the Middle East becoming more sophisticated, and which sectors are currently most exposed?

The region is not immune to ransomware threats. That is because their nature and sophistication have changed. AI is enabling attackers to automate reconnaissance, craft more convincing lures and move faster once inside a network, while double-extortion tactics that combine encryption with data theft have become standard practice rather than the exception.

Sectors that cannot tolerate downtime, including critical infrastructure, government services, finance, healthcare and oil and gas, are consistently the most exposed, because operational continuity is what ransomware is designed to exploit. Attackers increasingly target backups directly, on the assumption that an organisation without a viable recovery path is more likely to pay.

That’s why we developed the industry’s first Multilayer Ransomware Protection solution, which counters attacker tactics at every stage, from intrusion and spread to infection and compromise of the production system, and ultimately, backups themselves. It works through active collaboration between network and storage, rather than relying on any single control, to achieve zero data loss.

The UAE is investing heavily in AI, cloud infrastructure and data centres. How do you secure this rapidly expanding digital infrastructure without slowing innovation and adoption?

Security and innovation are treated as opposing forces more often than they should be. This happens when security is treated as an afterthought, rather than embedded in the process from the outset. At Huawei, we believe in a secure-by-design approach, where security is considered as part of the innovation process rather than as an item to check off a list.

This is particularly important when building large-scale national or enterprise infrastructure, especially infrastructure supporting sovereign clouds, AI and associated data centres. Security needs to be embedded at every layer: within the cloud platform itself, in the underlying computing infrastructure through approaches such as confidential computing, across data and network security, and through end-to-end monitoring and governance.

Responsible AI governance is also essential as AI moves from generating content to operating through autonomous agents. Security must therefore extend beyond monitoring what AI says to governing what it does, with clear controls over identity, privileges and execution and human oversight retained for high-risk decisions. Huawei’s AI management system achieved ISO/IEC 42001 certification in March 2026, reinforcing our commitment to systematic and responsible AI governance.

What do you see as the biggest cybersecurity threat to the Gulf — AI-powered attacks, attacks on critical infrastructure, supply-chain vulnerabilities, quantum-related risks or something we are not yet paying enough attention to?

If we had to choose a single label, AI-powered attacks would be the obvious answer, with quantum computing also emerging as a significant concern. But that slightly misses the point. The more accurate picture over the next three to five years is convergence.

AI isn’t a new, isolated category of threat; it’s a force multiplier acting on vulnerabilities that already exist across products, identity, and the growing interdependence between cloud, data centres and critical infrastructure. Quantum computing presents a different emerging challenge, particularly to the confidentiality of communications and data.

Organisations should begin preparing now by identifying where legacy cryptography is used, prioritising long-lived sensitive data and building crypto-agile architectures that can accommodate new algorithms as standards and technologies evolve.

As economies across the Gulf become more digitally interconnected, an incident in one system has the potential to cascade into others. That’s why we need to think about security as “Secure by Design, Resilient by DNA”. Organisations need dynamic, evolving and adaptive cybersecurity governance frameworks that can keep pace as technology and the threat landscape evolve, while continuing to support organisational functions and business objectives as paradigms shift.