UAE’s Time Hotels walked home a big winner at the prestigious World Luxury Hotel Awards, which took place in Finnish Lapland, scooping up a trio of awards. Three of Time Hotels’ properties were recognised for their excellence within the luxury hotel segment of the market, with Time Nozha Beach Aqua Park Hotel & Resort awarded ‘Luxury Family Beach Resort’, Time Dammam named ‘Luxury Contemporary Service Apartments’ and Time Express taking home the ‘Luxury Contemporary Hotel Award’.

Flag carrier Air Canada recently honoured 10 of its UAE travel agent partners for their support over the last year. The agents were presented with special accolades during the carrier’s annual awards gala. “2019 has been a real challenging year, yet we have managed to win top accolades from SkyTrax. That is a great honour for Air Canada and I want to thank each one of our travel agent partners for their support," said Deepu Cyriac, country manager, Air Canada.

The Dubai Accessible Tourism International Summit (DATIS), a new platform to help UAE move forward towards becoming one of the world’s best and most-friendly countries for People with Disabilities, especially in the field of tourism and travel, kicked off on November 5. The two-day summit highlighted challenges faced by more than 10 per cent of the global population during their travelling and exploring as tourists in the cities across the world, and also underscored the need to strengthen the legislations, infrastructure and services that meet their rights, needs and aspirations to discover the world comfortably.

Tourism Malaysia has announced a joint promotional campaign with UAE’s Etihad Airways. The campaign aims to promote enhanced connectivity between Malaysia and the Middle East in line with the goals of the country’s Visit Malaysia 2020 initiative. The deal was signed by Datuk Musa Hj. Yusof, director general of Tourism Malaysia, and Hareb Almuhairy, senior vice president Destination and Leisure Management, Etihad Aviation Group at World Travel Market (WTM) in London.

The German National Tourist Office-Gulf countries (GNTO) held a B2B travel trade networking lunch in Bahrain in partnership with premium airline partner, Lufthansa German Airlines. The continued aim of the GNTO’s series of the B2B events is to promote Germany as a year-round travel destination and to highlight the latest tourism attractions for the year 2020. Six German partners took part in the ‘Destination Germany’ networking lunch, showcasing their attractions and exclusive facilities to the leading Bahraini travel trade professionals.

Miral, Abu Dhabi’s creator of destinations, announced that Clymb Abu Dhabi, its new sports and leisure attraction, is close to completion and will be open on November 29. The $100 million (Dh367 million) project will feature the world’s tallest indoor climbing wall (140 ft) and widest skydiving flight chamber (over 32ft), further attracting visitors to Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island.

Grand Plaza Mövenpick Media City in Dubai Media City hosted its first authentic Bavarian Festival from October 23 to November 9 inside a traditional Munich-style Oktoberfest Tent. The inaugural Oktoberfest M’City 2019 extravaganza featured a series of exclusive deals and entertainment including ladies’ nights, Bavarian brunches and a live band flown over especially for the occasion.

Dubai Fitness Challenge (DFC) 2019 concluded its biggest edition yet on November 16, pulling out all the stops to encourage the city to embrace a fitter and more active lifestyle. The citywide fitness initiative organised four weeks of non-stop activities and challenges for people of all ages and abilities.