Disney has selected the United Arab Emirates as the location for its seventh theme park – the first new park from the entertainment brand in over a decade.
Disneyland Abu Dhabi marks the company’s biggest move yet in the Middle East, CNN Travel reports, building on groundwork laid in recent years by new retail locations and touring entertainment shows like the Disney on Ice and the Broadway production of The Lion King.
Disney CEO Bob Iger told business outlet CNBC that the company first started eying the region for a new resort location in 2017, hoping to take advantage of the UAE’s ambitious plans to become a tourism and transport hub. Airports in Abu Dhabi and nearby Dubai aim to connect a third of the world’s population within a four-hour flight, including the world’s most populous country, India.
Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Experiences, told CNN that a potential 500 million people in the region have the means to visit a Disney theme park. Easy access and a strikingly future-oriented development meant “there was no question that, for our seventh resort, this is where it was going to be,” D’Amaro added.
“As our seventh theme park destination, it will rise from this land in spectacular fashion, blending contemporary architecture with cutting edge technology to offer guests deeply immersive entertainment experiences in unique and modern ways,” Iger said in a statement.
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Iger told CNBC that Disney “imagineers” are already hard at work designing the new park, expected to be the company’s most technologically advanced park and a perfect fit for Abu Dhabi’s futuristic aesthetic.
“Every time we open a new experience or a theme park… it’s really important not just to take a theme park that might exist somewhere else and plop it into the ground in that new area that we would be going into,” D’Amaro explained during a CNN interview. Each park should be a reflection of a specific location, in everything from design to the food on offer. “And so here in Abu Dhabi, we want the same thing.”
While Disney is leading the creative design and operational oversight, the project will be fully developed, built and operated by Abu Dhabi firm Miral. The firm has developed several other resorts on Yas Island, the planned home of Disneyland Abu Dhabi, including SeaWorld YAS Island Abu Dhabi, Yas Waterworld, and Warner Bros. World.
The island is within a 20-minute drive of the capital and a 50-minute drive from Dubai, boasting a golf course, marina, waterfront, mall and 165 eateries in addition to its many theme parks. D’Amaro teased on CNBC that Disney’s new park will be “much larger than anything” currently on Yas Island
It will likely be years before this futuristic Disneyland in the desert will be up and running. Iger told CNBC that it takes 18 to 24 months to design and fully develop a park and around five years to build, “but we’re not making any commitments right now.” Still, the promise of a new Disneyland with its own unique aesthetic – artist renderings of the central castle feature a spiralling, crystal-like structure, a far cry from the typical Cinderella castle – has plenty of Disney fans eagerly planning their future trips.
