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LIWA VILLAGE RETURNS WITH NEW ACTIVATIONS AND EXPERIENCES AT LIWA INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2026

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The Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) has announced programming details and the impressive lineup of partners for this year’s Liwa Village at Liwa International Festival 2026, which continues until 3 January 2026. Set within Al Dhafra Region’s iconic desert landscape, the festival is one of Abu Dhabi’s most anticipated winter celebrations, presenting thrilling motorsports challenges and honouring the UAE’s heritage through culture, entertainment, and family experiences.

Liwa Village: The Festival’s Cultural & Entertainment Heartbeat

Located at the heart of the Liwa International Festival, cultural and entertainment destination Liwa Village is an expansive space where heritage, creativity, adventure, and family experiences come together in one seamlessly curated journey. Built around six immersive zones – Shams Liwa, Wanasa, Meydan, Souk, Adrenaline, and Auto – the Village offers a rich lineup of activities designed to engage every age group and interest, inviting visitors to explore a world that celebrates the UAE’s traditions while embracing the energy of modern entertainment.

Shams Liwa, crowned by its iconic Ferris Wheel, provides sweeping views of the Village and the golden dunes surrounding it, setting the tone for a memorable visit. The cultural heart of the Village is the Souk, inspired by traditional Emirati markets, bringing heritage to life through pottery workshops, weaving, henna, live cooking sessions, artisan showcases, and sensory cultural experiences that resonate with both residents and tourists.

For younger visitors, Wanasa delivers a vibrant mix of creative workshops, carnival rides, maze adventures, and play parks crafted to spark imagination and connection. Meydan, the dynamic teen zone, enhances this year’s programme with immersive challenges including smash rooms, horror escape rooms, strategic games, and interactive stage moments tailored to bold, expressive youth.

Adventure-seekers will enjoy the Adrenaline Zone, home to high-energy rides, carnival attractions, and thrilling games that add momentum to the Village’s lively atmosphere. Meanwhile, motoring fans will find a dedicated haven in the Auto Zone, featuring a rotating exhibition of classic cars, RC racing tracks, jeep experiences, and hands-on motoring-themed activations that celebrate the UAE’s strong automotive culture.

Beyond its core zones, this year’s Liwa Village expands with signature attractions including the Monster Jam Arena, the family-friendly Petting Zoo & Pony Grove, and the adrenaline-fuelled Desert Rally and Water Karting experiences, ensuring every visitor can navigate their own adventure across the Village’s extended footprint.

Across the festival’s 23 days, the Village will host live shows, hands-on workshops, interactive installations, cultural showcases, and exclusive partner activations, creating a deeply engaging, accessible, and family-friendly environment. With its diversity, scale, and heritage-driven design, Liwa Village promises an unmissable experience that brings culture, entertainment, and community together on The Desert’s Grand Stage.

A destination brought to life through partnerships

As Liwa Village expands its offering for the 2026 edition, this year’s partners will introduce a selection of dedicated activities, displays, and guest experiences. Emirates NBD joins as Zone Presenting Partner, alongside Official Partners Noon, CFI Financial Group, Al Masaood Equipment Rental, Ma Hawa, Yango Group, and Al Ain Zoo, each contributing engaging touchpoints designed to amplify the Village atmosphere. Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi returns as Medical Partner, ensuring the wellbeing and safety of all visitors across the Village grounds.

A focus on sustainability

LIWA Village is setting a new benchmark in sustainability this year, powering the venue with clean mobile energy. DCT Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with event organiser LINKVIVA and their energy partner Kilo Energy, set up a large temporary solar farm at the festival grounds, proving not only that renewable energy can powering entire events, but also that such solutions are more convenient for event guests, as they are free of noise and emissions.

The system, developed by Kilo Energy, combines a large-scale portable solar farm with high-end Huawei energy storage systems, ensuring a steady supply of clean energy day and night.The deployed clean mobile energy system is optimised for use at events of any size, and reflects DCT Abu Dhabi’s leadership in adopting innovative, future-ready energy infrastructure to redefine how events can be powered.

A Beloved Tradition for Over Two Decades

For more than 20 years, the Liwa International Festival has been a cherished annual event, attracting tens of thousands of visitors from the UAE, region and around the world. Each year the event continues to grow and evolve, offering an experience that blends tradition with modern-day appeal, ensuring it remains the ultimate winter destination in Abu Dhabi.

Whether visiting for a day or staying for an extended desert escape, Liwa International Festival 2026 provides a unique opportunity to connect with the UAE’s heritage, create unforgettable memories with loved ones, and enjoy an authentic celebration of Emirati culture.

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Hospitality

Endless Creators Launches in the UAE to Streamline Talent and Production Workflows

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A new platform is entering the UAE’s growing creator economy with a clear focus on structure, reliability, and end-to-end execution. Founded by Rosie Gunn and Chris Primett, Endless Creators positions itself as a full-service talent, creator, and production platform designed to simplify how brands and creative professionals collaborate.

Bridging Gaps in a Fragmented Industry

The platform is built on firsthand industry experience. Having worked across campaigns as on-set talent, the founders identified persistent challenges within the region’s creative ecosystem, including inconsistent standards, fragmented workflows, and delays in payment and coordination.

Endless Creators is designed to address these inefficiencies by creating a more structured and transparent environment for both brands and talent. The focus is on bringing consistency to an industry that often operates across multiple disconnected layers.

A Curated Talent Ecosystem

Unlike open marketplaces, Endless Creators operates as a curated network. Talent is vetted and selected to ensure reliability and quality across projects. The platform brings together a wide range of creative professionals, including content creators, models, actors, videographers, stylists, and production specialists.

This approach enables brands to access a more controlled and dependable talent pool, while also offering creators a more organised and supportive working environment.

Beyond Talent: Full-Service Production

The platform extends beyond talent sourcing into full-scale production support. Services include creative direction, concept development, location management, and production execution. By integrating these functions, Endless Creators aims to reduce the complexity typically associated with managing creative projects across multiple vendors.

Operational tools are also built into the platform to improve efficiency, including structured call sheets, influencer licensing support, and systems designed to streamline communication between stakeholders.

Raising Standards Across the Ecosystem

A key focus for the platform is improving the overall experience for talent. This includes more transparent processes, reliable payment structures, and better on-set organisation. By addressing these foundational issues, Endless Creators is positioning itself as part of a broader shift towards professionalising the region’s creator economy.

Positioning the UAE as a Creative Hub

With roots in both the UAE and the UK, the founders are bringing a global perspective to a rapidly evolving local market. The platform is not only aimed at improving collaboration within the region but also at supporting the UAE’s positioning as a hub for high-quality production and creative output.

Editorial Perspective

The launch of Endless Creators reflects a wider transition in the creator economy, where scale alone is no longer enough. As brands demand higher quality, faster execution, and more accountability, platforms that combine talent access with operational structure are becoming increasingly relevant.

In this context, Endless Creators is not just another talent marketplace. It represents a move towards integrated, production-led ecosystems that align creative output with business outcomes—an approach that is likely to shape the next phase of growth in the region’s content and media landscape.

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Hospitality

WHY CREDIBLE SUSTAINABILITY STILL WINS IN AN INFLATIONARY MARKET

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Ryan Black, Co-founder & CEO of SAMBAZON – the organic, fair trade and sustainable açaí brand – shares that the future of sustainability belongs to brands that can show measurable metrics, independent audits and full supply chain transparency.

Consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products, even when inflation continues to shape purchasing decisions. For hospitality businesses, this is an important signal. It underlines that sustainability still carries commercial value, particularly in premium cafés, hotels, restaurants and foodservice settings where quality, provenance and brand trust all influence buying behaviour.

At the same time, consumers are becoming quicker to question the claims behind the products they buy. They may still value sustainability, but they are far less willing to accept broad environmental language without evidence. For hospitality operators, that creates a clear challenge. Sustainability can still support premium pricing, but only when it is credible, specific and properly substantiated.

At SAMBAZON, we continue to see strong demand for certified organic and ethically sourced products, despite inflationary pressure. That is especially true across natural retail, specialty grocery, foodservice and premium café channels.

Middle East consumers now actively seek transparency, clean labels and brands with verified impact. Our retail partners report that shoppers are willing to pay more for products that deliver on both quality and purpose, especially when certifications are clearly displayed and backed by third-party verification.

Sustainability = Quality

In hospitality, this premium positioning is often even more visible. Consumers increasingly associate certified organic and fair trade ingredients with superior quality, and that can strengthen menu pricing power. In other words, sustainability does not sit outside the guest experience. It’s part of how quality is perceived.

But hospitality businesses cannot rely on good intentions or attractive messaging.

Today’s consumer expects evidence, not claims.

 The proof points that matter most are those that can be verified and explained clearly. That includes recognized certification standards such as Fair for Life and USDA Certified Organic, as well as traceability from harvest to finished product, third-party audits, transparent impact reporting and measurable environmental protection. Consumers also want to understand the wider effect of their purchase; they want to know how their buying decision supports farmers, protects ecosystems and reinvests in communities.

That shift matters, because many of the old shortcuts in sustainability communication no longer work. Terms such as sustainable, ethical, green and eco-friendly can quickly become meaningless if they are too broad or impossible to prove. In our view, those words should only be used when they can be defined clearly and supported by evidence. Internally, every sustainability claim we make has to meet three tests: it must be backed by third-party verification, terms used must be clearly defined, and we must be able to provide supporting data if asked. Whenever possible, we replace adjectives with numbers.

That discipline is important because misconceptions still persist. Some consumers assume that sustainability simply means a higher price without added value. Others confuse natural with certified ethical sourcing. Many still believe sustainability claims are mostly marketing.

In reality, verified sustainability requires audited standards, compliance costs and structural investment across the supply chain. The price reflects those commitments, but it also reflects quality, transparency and long-term environmental stewardship.

For SAMBAZON, ethical sourcing is not a campaign line. It is built into the structure of the business. One hundred per cent of our açaí is certified organic, and our entire supply chain is Fair for Life certified. We work directly with 827 individual açaí harvesters across 256 communities in the Amazon region.

Since our founding, we have invested more than $1 million in harvester communities through verified fair trade premiums, helping to fund schools, health centers and community improvements. In 2024 alone, our Fair Trade-certified harvest area encompassed 100,204 acres of Amazon rainforest, an area more than four times the size of Paris. According to an independent 60 Decibels survey, 100 per cent of harvesters believe SAMBAZON contributes to the development of their community.

Those figures matter in hospitality because they move the conversation away from abstract values and into operational fact. They also help buyers explain why a product costs what it does.

Inflation has increased costs across logistics, packaging and global freight, but we have not reduced our certification standards or sourcing commitments to offset those pressures. We justify price through certified organic quality, verified fair trade sourcing, functional benefits and transparent, documented impact. Retailers and hospitality buyers understand that cutting corners on sourcing may reduce short-term cost, but it can also compromise brand equity and long-term consumer trust.

This is where the industry still gets it wrong. Too many sustainability claims rely on broad, unverified language with little measurable backing. Greenwashing often happens when brands use undefined terms without certification, highlight one positive initiative while ignoring wider supply chain impacts, or avoid third-party verification altogether. That may once have been enough to support a story, but it’s no longer enough to sustain trust.

For hospitality businesses, the lesson is straightforward. Consumers value sustainable products and will often pay more for them, even in a pressured economy. But the premium depends less on promise than on proof.

The future of sustainability communication will belong to brands that can show measurable metrics, independent audits and full supply chain transparency. In hospitality, where trust and perceived quality matter so much, documented proof is no longer a nice addition. It is the standard consumers increasingly expect.

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Hospitality

HYDRATION WITH PURPOSE: OURWATR AND KEETA UAE COLLABORATE TO TURN EVERYDAY WATER INTO COMMUNITY IMPACT

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Ourwatr is set to revolutionize community hydration with its free mineral water programme. Today, Ourwatr proudly announces a purpose-led collaboration with Keeta, the international on-demand food delivery platform. This strategic partnership is designed to expand community access to locally produced premium mineral water while simultaneously reinforcing a shared, profound commitment to social impact across the UAE.

Designed to serve the communities it reaches, Ourwatr is a homegrown UAE startup built on the belief that every bottle of water should deliver value beyond refreshment. Through its purpose-led model, a portion of each bottle distributed is channelled toward community programmes in partnership with Beit Al Khair Society. Sourced from the natural underground springs of Dibba and bottled locally under the Emirates Quality Mark (EQM), Ourwatr reflects the strength and credibility of the UAE’s SME ecosystem, transforming everyday hydration into sustained community support.

Through this collaboration, Keeta reinforces its commitment to supporting UAE-based SMEs initiatives that advance sustainability and community development. Keeta’s involvement provides crucial resources that enable Ourwatr to significantly expand its reach and accessibility. By aligning with a locally rooted platform like Ourwatr, Keeta contributes to scaling this impactful initiative responsibly, ensuring it maintains its community-first focus while reaching a broader audience. This collaboration reflects how platforms operating in the UAE can align their growth with broader social and environmental priorities, while actively supporting local businesses. Keeta’s support is instrumental in allowing Ourwatr to distribute its free mineral water more widely and enhance its community programs.

Commenting on the initiative, Lucas Xie, General Manager, Keeta UAE, said: “At Keeta, we see our mission as more than a platform; we are part of the communities we operate in. Partnering with Ourwatr allows us to support a homegrown initiative that embeds contribution into its everyday operations. By providing essential support, we are helping to expand Ourwatr’s access and reach, thereby playing a responsible role in strengthening the UAE’s SME ecosystem and fostering community-focused initiatives practically and sustainably.”

Abhinav Murali, Co-Founder of Ourwatr, said: “Ourwatr was founded on a simple conviction: giving back is not an initiative for us; it is built into every bottle we distribute. Our collaboration with Keeta enables us to scale this impact responsibly, reaching more people while ensuring that community contribution remains at the heart of our model. Growth means very little to us unless it strengthens the communities we operate in and leaves a positive mark beyond the product itself.”

With distribution planned across key neighborhoods in Dubai and the potential for broader expansion, the initiative is designed to scale thoughtfully while remaining firmly anchored in its founding principle: serving the UAE community through hydration with purpose. This initiative has been approved by the Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department (IACAD) under permit number PRHCE- 004959682

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