And this isn't just a small pat on the back
Good service deserves a little spotlight, and Abu Dhabi is ready to shine it.
The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) has launched its inaugural Visitor Experience Awards, a new annual programme celebrating the businesses and frontline professionals going above and beyond to make visitors feel welcome across the emirate.
And this isn’t just a small pat on the back. More than 400 tourism and cultural organisations have been invited to take part in the first edition, with 24 winners set to be crowned at a gala ceremony later this year.
The awards, led by DCT Abu Dhabi’s Visitor Experience (VX) function, are split into two streams: Business Awards, recognising organisations that are raising the bar, and Frontliner Awards, celebrating the people on the ground who create those memorable little moments that can make or break a day out.
Across the programme, there are eight categories, covering everything from customer experience and service excellence to innovation and accessibility.
In other words, whether you’re the person greeting guests with a smile, creating an ingenious new visitor experience or making sure an attraction is genuinely accessible to everyone, there’s a category with your name on it.
While there will inevitably be some shiny awards involved, the programme is about more than collecting silverware.
DCT Abu Dhabi says the initiative is designed to encourage innovation, accessibility and continuous improvement across the emirate’s tourism and cultural sectors.
From the first welcome to the final goodbye, every interaction can shape how someone feels about Abu Dhabi, and whether they recommend it, return or tell everyone back home about it.
The winners will be selected by an independent judging panel made up of experts from Abu Dhabi’s public and private sectors, with experience spanning tourism, hospitality, culture, customer experience, innovation, accessibility and service excellence.
His Excellency Saleh Mohamed Al Geziry, Director General for Tourism at DCT Abu Dhabi, said visitor experience is a major driver of how travellers perceive, recommend and return to a destination.
The 24 winners will be revealed at a gala ceremony later this year, bringing together tourism leaders and industry stakeholders from across Abu Dhabi.
The awards form part of DCT Abu Dhabi’s wider Visitor Experience programme, alongside its recently launched Visitor Experience Guidelines and VX Academy.
The bigger ambition is to make exceptional service less of a nice surprise and more of an Abu Dhabi standard, creating seamless, authentic and memorable experiences from the moment visitors arrive until the moment they leave.
So, Abu Dhabi’s tourism stars: consider the gauntlet officially thrown down.
