Industry landscapes
Industry report

Funding and advertised pay are reported in USD; filed accounts retain their stated source currency and basis.

Exchange-rate basis

Indicative conversions use ECB reference rates dated 2026-09-14, applied consistently across all periods. They are not historical exchange rates. Indian rupees may use crore (1 crore = 10 million); other currencies use K, M and B. CSV downloads, source documents and quoted news headlines retain their original currencies.

THE THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES EDITION 2026

the United Arab Emirates’s
travel and hospitality industry,
in focus.

The companies, capital and talent shaping travel and hospitality in the United Arab Emirates. Find the leaders. Understand the segments. See where the activity is.

Snapshot: Funding in USD
Illustrated cover for Travel and Hospitality Industry Landscape of the United Arab Emirates
AE
COMPANIES · CAPITAL · TALENT

An industry ecosystem,
measured in context.

Travel and Hospitality illustration
MEET THE COMPANIES

Explore the United Arab Emirates’s travel and hospitality leaders

24 featured companies from the funding, hiring, revenue and team-size leaderboards.

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Travel and Hospitality company highlights in the United Arab Emirates, snapshot 1 September 2026
Company
Etihad Airwaysetihad.com$1.91B3 roles175
Vista Globalvistaglobal.com$800M
Flydubaiflydubai.com$500M2 roles5,300
Sunset Hospitality Groupsunsethospitality.com$63.71M
Qstayqstay.ae$11.1M
Maison Priveethemaisonprivee.com$4M85
Amani Travelamaniworld.com$517.87K
Nourishnourish.travel$400K
dnatadnata.com10 roles600
Jumeirahjumeirah.com3 roles350
Abu Dhabi Airportsadairports.ae2 roles1,944
Al Khoory Hotelsalkhooryhotels.com2 roles
OY Hospitalityoyhospitality.com2 roles
Talents UAEtalentsuae.com2 roles
Air Arabiaairarabia.com125
Dubai Aerospace Enterprisedubaiaerospace.com241
Emiratesskycargo.com2,235
Emirates Grouptheemiratesgroup.com62,356
Etihad Railetihadrail.ae240
Falcon Aviationfalconaviation.ae246
One&Only Royal Mirageoneandonlyresorts.com350
RTArta.ae
Vfsglobalvfsglobal.com4,147
Yas Waterworldyaswaterworld.com
24 featured companies

Locked revenue figures are available in Radar; the eight company financial previews stay the same throughout this page. A dash means the figure is outside these featured lists. Revenue years vary by company; the figures are not a like-for-like revenue comparison. Compare annual accounts ↗

Company discovery

Recorded evidence only

Explore the live startup set in Radar

No company example met every recorded classification, independence and public-profile gate in this snapshot. The live directory may have newer qualifying companies.

Explore classified startups in Radar ↗
THE KEY SIGNALS

Travel and Hospitality industry KPIs in the United Arab Emirates

A few useful ratios bring the size of this ecosystem into perspective.

1 September 2026
Hiring participation3.9%

31 of 800 tracked companies have open roles.

Funding participation1.0%

8 of 800 tracked companies have a recorded round.

Top 3 funding share97.6%

Share of disclosed capital received by the three largest recorded recipients.

Median disclosed round$35M

Midpoint of 14 rounds with a disclosed amount.

Scale is concentrated. Opportunity is broader. The three largest funding recipients hold 97.6% of disclosed capital, while 99.0% of tracked companies have no recorded funding round.

Explore the segments →
CAPITAL & COMPANY FORMATION

How the United Arab Emirates travel and hospitality has grown

Recorded company formation and disclosed funding across the complete annual series shown.

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2016 — 2025

Disclosed funding by year

Sum of recorded funding rounds · USD

the United Arab Emirates travel and hospitality
$0$342M$684M$1.03B$1.37B2016: $020162017: $020172018: $204M20182019: $612.86M20192020: $600M20202021: $1.2B20212022: $41.5M20222023: $400K20232024: $4.6M20242025: $628.71M2025
View the numbers
Annual travel and hospitality funding and company formation in the United Arab Emirates
YearFunding (USD)FoundedRaising
2016$0270
2017$0310
2018$204M472
2019$612.86M443
2020$600M451
2021$1.2B461
2022$41.5M522
2023$400K311
2024$4.6M111
2025$628.71M12
WHERE CAPITAL SITS

Funding concentration

Share of all disclosed company funding.

  • Etihad Airways58.1%
  • Vista Global24.3%
  • Flydubai15.2%
  • Other companies2.4%

Funding by stage

16 recorded rounds since 2016

NUMBER OF ROUNDS
Seed & Angel3 18.8%
Series A–B1 6.2%
Series C+ / PE4 25.0%
Grants, debt & other8 50.0%

Recent recorded rounds

Latest recorded rounds · USD
0 rounds

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

Largest and notable recorded rounds

Each card is one recorded round
6 cards

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

Seed07/2022
Qstayqstay.ae$6.5M

Participating investors were not recorded in this snapshot.

Seed06/2024
Qstayqstay.ae$4.6M

Participating investors were not recorded in this snapshot.

THE BUSINESS BEHIND THE ACTIVITY

Revenue, profitability & financial strength

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Annual accounts availability

No reviewed exact national-ID connector has yet been qualified for United Arab Emirates; this is a checked implementation boundary, not evidence that filings are absent.; No reviewed exact national-ID connector has yet been qualified for United Arab Emirates; this is a checked implementation boundary, not evidence that filings are absent.

DIGITAL FOOTPRINT

Web traffic, app reach and release cadence

How the the United Arab Emirates companies on this page show up online: the sites people visit, the apps they install, and how often those apps ship.

Busiest websites

16 of the 801 companies on this page carry a measured traffic record (2%); these are the largest of those, by monthly visits. The median among them is 286,341 visits.

Visits and authority are third-party web estimates, not company-reported figures.

Most-installed apps

56 of these companies (7%) publish at least one Android app — 77 apps in all, carrying 24.9M installs between them.

AppInstallsRatingStore category
RTA DubaiRTA5.1M3.7Productivity
Air Arabia (official app)Air Arabia5M4.4Travel & Local
flydubaiFlydubai4.2M3.9Travel & Local
EtihadEtihad Airways3.6M1.8Travel & Local
RTA Smart DriveRTA2.8M4.7Maps & Navigation
nol PayRTA1.1M3.4Travel & Local
GHA DISCOVERYGHA DISCOVERY630.4K4.1Travel & Local
S\'hailRTA592.7K2.3Maps & Navigation
Experience Abu Dhabi OfficialVisit Abu Dhabi348.9K4.6Travel & Local
VFS GlobalVfsglobal291.3K2.1Travel & Local

Installs are lifetime totals to date at the June 2026 store reading — a measure of reach, not of people using an app today.

App reach by segment

The busiest app inside each of this page’s own segments, with the quarterly release trend behind it (2023Q3–2026Q2).

SegmentAppsInstallsLeading appRelease trend
Passenger Airlines812.8MAir Arabia (official app) 5M
Hotels15656.5KWest Zone : Grocery Shopping 273.7K
Travel Agencies7407.4KVFS Global 291.3K
Museums & Galleries4198.6KLouvre Abu Dhabi 178.9K
Tour Operators10124.6KReward Card 79.1K
Airport Operators662.2KAUH Guest 52.3K
Car Rentals833.2KAlbosala 17.4K
Online Travel311.1KInstaDubaiVisa - Visa on Time 10.8K

A company can carry several segment tags, so these rows overlap and should not be added together. Trend lines are zero-based and share one quarter grid, so a flat line is a quiet segment, not a missing one.

Release cadence by quarter

New apps published, beside apps whose most recent update landed in that quarter — the second bar is how much of the shelf is still being maintained.

2023Q1: 22023Q1: 02023Q12023Q2: 42023Q2: 02023Q22023Q3: 32023Q3: 12023Q32023Q4: 22023Q4: 02023Q42024Q1: 22024Q1: 12024Q12024Q2: 62024Q2: 32024Q22024Q3: 12024Q3: 12024Q32024Q4: 52024Q4: 12024Q42025Q1: 32025Q1: 12025Q12025Q2: 32025Q2: 32025Q22025Q3: 12025Q3: 102025Q32025Q4: 32025Q4: 72025Q4

Darker bars are new releases, lighter bars apps updated. 69 of 77 apps carry a release date. The series ends at 2025Q4, the last quarter that closed before the June 2026 reading.

INSIDE THE INDUSTRY

The the United Arab Emirates travel and hospitality market map

Explore the segments behind the headline numbers.

Expand panel +

Where companies are building

Rank segments by scale, hiring or disclosed funding.

Segment data unavailable0

Companies can sit in several segments. Counts and funding overlap.

SEGMENT TO EXPLORE

Segment data unavailable

The largest measured segment in this report snapshot.

0companies
0%have hiring activity

0 companies hiring · $0 disclosed funding

Explore in Radar

How companies make money

Common revenue models; a company can use more than one.

THE COMPANIES IN MOTION

Who is listing, hiring leaders, launching and winning work

Recorded corporate activity linked to companies in this landscape.

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Recent corporate headlines 8 dated reports
Mergers & acquisitionsdubaiaerospace.com ↗

Aircraft leasing firm Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) Ltd will acquire Macquarie AirFinance Ltd for an approximate enterprise value of $7 billion.

Mergers & acquisitionssunsethospitality.com ↗

Sunset Hospitality Group (SHG), a multinational lifestyle hospitality company, has acquired a majority stake in Solutions Group, one of the UAE’s most awarded operators of nightlife, dining, and entertainment venues, as part of a strategy to accelerate global growth.

Mergers & acquisitionsrakhospitalityholding.com ↗

Marjan, the master developer of freehold properties in Ras Al Khaimah, and RAK Hospitality Holding, the government‑owned investment and development arm in the Emirate, have announced a landmark strategic merger to create a unified entity operating under Marjan.

Mergers & acquisitionsvfsglobal.com ↗

VFS Global, the global leader in trusted technology services, empowering secure global mobility for governments and citizens, has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in CiX Citizen Experience, a leading provider of digital and physical citizen services based in Brazil.

IPO activityetihad.com ↗

Etihad Airways is set to announce a landmark AED 3.67 billion (USD 1 billion) initial public offering (IPO) this week, marking a significant milestone in the airline’s history.

Company announcementsflydubai.com ↗

flydubai ramps up operations following the full resumption of air traffic across the country.

Company announcementsskycargo.com ↗

Emirates SkyCargo has launched a weekly cargo flight to Toronto Pearson Airport to strengthen air freight connections between Canada and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Company announcementsdubaiairports.ae ↗

Dubai Airports announced the accelerated recovery phase after the General Civil Aviation Authority confirmed on May 2 that all precautionary measures introduced on February 28 had been lifted.

Full recorded event mix

Top 10 categories among 826 recorded events in the 24-month window.

Company announcements
449
Earnings
127
Contracts
124
Asset acquisitions
26
Mergers & acquisitions
23
New products
22
Leadership moves
19
Job creation
18
Capital infusions
8
Lawsuit
4
6 activity cards

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

IPO pipeline

1 companies with recorded IPO activity

IPO · Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange5 reports

Leadership moves

7 tracked people moves

Kerzner ↗
Jonathan Bellamy

Promotion Account Director

Kerzner ↗
Lize Smit

Promotion Director of Commercial

Kerzner ↗
Olivia Knight

Appointment Account Director

Michael Doersam

Resignation Previously Chief Financial Officer

dnata ↗
Marwan Essa

Appointment Managing Director

Matthew Lloyd

Promotion Vice President Marketing Technology & CRM

Steve Ayalo

Appointment Vice President IT Governance, Risk & Compliance

Product launches

Products, platforms and features in the recorded window

Emirates ↗
freighter service to Toronto Pearson Airport

Freighter service

Emirates ↗
10 new freighters

Aircraft

Etihad for Business (EYB) Carbon Offsets Redemption

Carbon Offset Redemption

AI aircraft turnaround system

AI-powered airport operations

Real-time digital invoicing system

Digital invoicing

Regulatory events

2 recorded events

dnata ↗

license renewedZürich Airport (ZRH)

dnata ↗

re-awarded licenseZürich Airport

Litigation

3 tracked suits

Company
etihad airways v U.S. resident

Cybersquatting domain name disputeCivil · Ongoing

Company
Ireland’s AerCap, dubai aerospace enterprise v insurers

insurance dispute over aircraft stranded in Russia following the 2022 invasion of UkraineCivil · Verdict

Earnings pulse

Reported company results in the recorded window.

11companies
119period observations
11.0%median reported growth

Median across 122 reported growth observations; companies may contribute multiple periods.

Mergers and acquisitions

Company-linked deal reports; status is preserved as recorded.

Acquirer → targetStatusDateValue / context
Etihad Airwaysjet airwaysAnnounced2026-04-24Not stated in snapshot
dnataairport handlingCompleted2026-03-31Not stated in snapshot
Dubai Aerospace EnterpriseMacquarie AirFinanceAnnounced2026-02-26$7.0B
Dubai Aerospace Enterprisenordic aviation capitalAnnounced2026-02-26$2.0B
Dubai Aerospace EnterpriseAWASCompleted2026-02-23Not stated in snapshot
Sunset Hospitality Groupsolutions groupAnnounced2026-02-04Not stated in snapshot

A discussion or rumour is not a completed transaction. An unstated value is not zero.

PEOPLE & OPPORTUNITY

The talent market

13 postings in the preceding 12 months. The full 18-posting snapshot covers 17 employers.

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Most advertised job titles

Director Managed Unified Comm. & Collaboration Product1
Chief Design Officer (Real Estate & Hospitality Developments)1
Senior Ff&E Designer (Hospitality)1
Outlet Manager (Mediterranean Cuisine)1
Insights Analyst (Hospitality)1
Sales Executive Field Trips (Children S Entertainment)1
0 internship postings

0 tracked postings mention remote work.

The seniority mix

10 postings specify a level.

unspecified
8
manager
7
senior
2
entry
1

Skills employers mention

Top skills across 18 tracked postings in the available jobs snapshot.

Hospitality
11
Business Development
3
Customer Service
3
B2B Sales
2
Microsoft Office
2
Negotiation Skills
1
Tablet Registration Tool
1
Key Account Management
1
Restaurant Management
1
Tourism Management
1
THE PEOPLE BUILDING THE FIELD

Founders and leaders

108 founders and chief executives across 98 companies.

Expand panel +
12 profiles

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

Education networks

8 profiles with education records.

Cornell University
3
University College London
1
Tokyo Institute of Technology
1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1
ESSEC Business School
1
Columbia University
1
Harvard University
1
Harvard Business School
1

Prior employers

0 profiles with prior-work records.

Profiles cover recorded founders and leaders; contact details remain in Radar.

NEWS INTELLIGENCE

How this industry appears in the news

151,268 articles in the measured 12-month window.

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151,268articles in the measured year
53,411articles in 2026Q1
67.9%positive tone in the latest complete year

News volume trends

Travel and Hospitality coverage across United Arab Emirates · articles per complete quarter

015,35630,71146,06761,4232021Q2: 14,2342021Q22021Q3: 18,3252021Q4: 20,6692022Q1: 19,9432022Q2: 15,7172022Q22022Q3: 16,8842022Q4: 22,2632023Q1: 25,2912023Q2: 21,9182023Q22023Q3: 25,5092023Q4: 30,1432024Q1: 23,5122024Q2: 22,2152024Q22024Q3: 22,6492024Q4: 31,9552025Q1: 38,2802025Q2: 28,1722025Q22025Q3: 29,5632025Q4: 31,7752026Q1: 53,4112026Q1
View quarterly article counts
QuarterArticles
2021Q214,234
2021Q318,325
2021Q420,669
2022Q119,943
2022Q215,717
2022Q316,884
2022Q422,263
2023Q125,291
2023Q221,918
2023Q325,509
2023Q430,143
2024Q123,512
2024Q222,215
2024Q322,649
2024Q431,955
2025Q138,280
2025Q228,172
2025Q329,563
2025Q431,775
2026Q153,411

Article volume measures coverage, not market sales.

Tone of coverage over time

2021
35,819 positive · 1,450 neutral · 18,775 negative
2022
48,963 positive · 1,790 neutral · 23,917 negative
2023
72,735 positive · 1,410 neutral · 28,574 negative
2024
70,432 positive · 1,889 neutral · 27,873 negative
2025
86,694 positive · 2,957 neutral · 37,934 negative

Leading coverage topics

Travel and Hospitality coverage across United Arab Emirates · ranked by full-period article count.

International Political Relations16,355 articles in the full recorded period
7,885 recent · 3,173 prior
International Sports Competitions12,845 articles in the full recorded period
3,279 recent · 3,614 prior
Security And Defense Policies10,981 articles in the full recorded period
6,524 recent · 1,669 prior
International Relations And Diplomacy8,289 articles in the full recorded period
3,814 recent · 1,471 prior
Naval And Aerial Combat Operations6,004 articles in the full recorded period
3,734 recent · 773 prior
Cryptocurrency Impact On Forex Markets5,976 articles in the full recorded period
2,519 recent · 1,306 prior
Military Technology Advancements5,780 articles in the full recorded period
4,136 recent · 428 prior
New Product Launches And Innovations5,504 articles in the full recorded period
1,712 recent · 1,227 prior
Strategic Partnerships And Collaborations5,137 articles in the full recorded period
1,712 recent · 1,104 prior
Formula One Championships4,517 articles in the full recorded period
787 recent · 1,089 prior

Recent and prior counts use the source comparison windows.

Topics gaining and losing attention

Travel and Hospitality coverage across United Arab Emirates

KeywordRecentPriorChange
aerial bombardments1,270276360%
flight disruption payments1,2251011113%
diplomatic strategies1,199578107%
national security strategy979113766%
foreign policy analysis970399143%
geopolitical alliances96052981%
multilateral diplomacy951464105%
oil price volatility869178388%
opec policies774180330%
diplomatic engagements684319114%
icc champions trophy3742,103-82%
odi cricket6971,454-52%
odi tactics7411,412-48%
limited overs cricket7191,396-48%
odi tournaments6611,359-51%

Event and signal lenses

Travel and Hospitality coverage across United Arab Emirates

All complete annual cohorts shown
Rising

Regulatory Risk

158,184 classified articles

odi world cup, icc world cup, odi tactics

54.9% critical · 35.2% positive
Rising

Funding Momentum

23,522 classified articles

odi world cup, icc world cup, east asia cup

44.8% critical · 46.2% positive
Rising

Growth

56,321 classified articles

entering global market, gdp growth forex, logistics update

35.9% critical · 54.4% positive

Travel and Hospitality coverage across United Arab Emirates. Topic labels describe recorded classifications and can include broad context.

GEOGRAPHIC FOOTPRINT

Where companies are based

Company counts, hiring and disclosed funding across the recorded hubs.

Expand panel +
8 cards

Swipe or scroll horizontally to browse.

UNDERSTAND THE LANDSCAPE

Travel and Hospitality in the United Arab Emirates: key questions

Clear definitions for making better comparisons.

What does this landscape measure?

It measures the tracked company ecosystem, recorded funding, hiring and other available evidence. It is not a market-size estimate.

Can segment counts be added together?

No. A company can belong to several segments, so segment counts and funding can overlap.

What does a missing figure mean?

A dash or unavailable panel means the current reviewed source snapshot does not support that figure.

Company ecosystem snapshot: 1 September 2026. Funding is recorded in USD; filed accounts retain their stated currency and reporting basis. Each section identifies its own coverage. The news and research behind these sections is explorable in Prism.

Canonical landscape ↗
Coming soon