Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority

Abu Dhabi’s 2010 visitor offering is energised, engaging, entertaining and educational. The destination now has an extensive choice of accommodation from uber five-star luxury to more affordable alternatives – and all are committed to delivering service excellence that sets the emirate apart. The choice of attractions is also bigger than ever. For the golfer there’s the fabulous new Saadiyat Beach Golf Course – an all-grass, championship-ready facility designed by golfing legend Gary Player. Having the distinction of being the Arabian Gulf’s only ‘ocean’ course, with several beach-front holes, this is a leisure golfer’s dream. This would soon be complemented by an 18-hole, all-grass Links course on Yas Island and another nine, all-grass holes at the existing nine-hole course at the Palm Sports Resort in Al Ain allowing play under the dramatic setting of Jebel Hafeet – the emirate’s highest peak.

First time visitors looking to get initially acquainted with the destination can hop on and off the Big Bus Company’s double-deckers for a guided city tour, or they can take to the water with Yellow Boats for a tour of Abu Dhabi city’s magnificent coastline – getting a brief along the way of some mega developments underway.

Abu Dhabi abounds with adventure activity options. You can take in the magnificent Corniche setting – unparalleled at sunset – on a hired cycle and decide your own pace, take to the water in a kayak for tours of the dense mangroves which are so essential to the emirate’s bio-system and which are actively being preserved, or take to the skies in a hot-air balloon for a desert ride like no other.

Whatever visitors do, and wherever they go, they can do so in safety and in the knowledge that the famed, centuries-old Arabian hospitality, which is a hallmark of the emirate, will greet them.