Think summer in the Maldives is all about sipping cocktails and doing absolutely nothing? You could. But at Siyam World Maldives, you could also swim with sharks, race electric go-karts, become a certified mermaid, train with football legends and explore one of the Maldives’ newest shipwrecks, all before deciding what is for dinner. Because normal island holidays are not really our thing. Here are 10 reasons why Siyam World is turning up the fun this summer.

1. Dive into the Maldives’ Newest Obsession

Some resorts have house reefs. Siyam World has a shipwreck. The newest underwater attraction in Noonu Atoll is a 66 metre former Maldivian tuna freighter that now rests beneath the surface, ready to be explored by divers and marine life alike. Today it is an exciting new wreck dive. Tomorrow it will become a thriving artificial reef. Not bad for a retired fishing boat.

2. Train with Football Legends

This August, young football fans can swap the local pitch for paradise as former Premier League stars Andrew Johnson and Wayne Routledge arrive at Siyam World for two exclusive football camps. Not every summer holiday comes with professional coaching and ocean views. 10th – 14th AUGUST 2026 – Andrew Johnson / 15th – 19th AUGUST 2026 – Wayne Routledge. For kids between the ages of 5-12 years. More info here:

3. Swim with Sharks. Brag About It Later.

Swimming with sharks sounds terrifying. Until you realise these are gentle nurse sharks and curious sea turtles gliding through crystal clear waters. A three-hour snorkelling trip suddenly becomes one of those holiday stories you will tell for years.

4. The Floor Is Lava. The Water Park Is Not.

The Maldives’ biggest floating water park is basically an invitation to unleash your inner child. Climb it. Jump off it. Race your friends. Repeat.

5. Become a Mermaid. Seriously.

Some people come home from holiday with a tan. Others leave Siyam World with a mermaid certificate. This Try Mermaid Pool Program includes one session in the pool, all the equipment you’ll need as well as a certificate of completion. We know which one sounds more fun.

6. Golf, But Make It Shipwrecked.

Take on the Shipwrecked golf challenge, compete with friends and maybe even win resort credit while you are at it. Losing gracefully is optional.

7. Saddle Up, Maldives Style

Horse riding is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Maldives. That is exactly why we love it.

8. Dinner Underground, Island Style

Hidden beneath the island, Barrique is home to exceptional wines, curated menus and one of the most unique dining experiences in the Maldives. Choose between multiple course gourmet tasting menus that are served surrounded by hundreds of world-renowned vintages, where our sommelier is ready to take you through a wine journey that you will never forget. Because even adventure seekers need a sophisticated evening now and then.

9. Swap Flip-Flops for Pole Position

Who says paradise cannot come with a little friendly competition? Siyam World’s electric go-karts bring speed, excitement and plenty of laughs to the island, proving once again that this is a destination designed for those who like their holidays with a side of adventure.

10. Take on the Delmare Golf Challenge

Add a competitive twist to your stay with Siyam World’s golf challenge at Shipwrecked. Guests have the chance to win resort credit while enjoying a fun and social activity set against the backdrop of the ocean. Fun fact, the gold balls are fish food.

To make the most of summer, Siyam World is offering an exclusive limited-time offer with up to 45% off best available rates, complemented by added benefits including complimentary shared seaplane transfers on selected stays, USD 150 resort credit per bedroom, and a one-time floating breakfast for longer stays. Guests can enjoy the full Premium 24-hour WOW! all-inclusive experience, with up to two children under 12 staying and dining complimentary. The offer is available for bookings until 31 August 2026, for stays until 31 October 2027. Then tell us again that the Maldives is only for doing nothing.

Your Dubai stay just unlocked its ultimate plot twist. Check into Vida Dubai Marina & Yacht Club, then swap skyline views for shoreline bliss with complimentary beach access at Address Beach Resort on selected room categories. Morning coffee by the marina, afternoon swims by the sea, and golden hour back at the yacht club? That’s a holiday itinerary that just makes sense.

Think less choosing between city and coast, more having both. Lounge by the beach, enjoy exclusive savings at the beach outlets, then head back to the energy of Dubai Marina. With complimentary access for children below 12 years too, it’s the kind of summer upgrade that gives you two iconic Dubai experiences in one stay.

Date: Until 30 September 2026

Offer:
– Complimentary beach access at Address Beach Resort for selected room categories
– Complimentary return transfers between Vida Dubai Marina and Address Beach Resort
– Complimentary beach access for children below 12 years
– 20% savings on food and beverages at the beach outlets

Venues: Vida Dubai Marina & Yacht Club and Address Beach Resort

By Federico Pienvoi, CEO for MENA and APAC at Globant

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup in full swing across 16 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the tournament has marked a shift in how we experience sport, and how sport experiences us. With 48 nations competing for the first time and millions of fans flooding stadiums from Vancouver to Guadalajara, it is the most connected, most measured, most analyzed cultural event in history. Every cheer, every purchase, every swipe through a stadium app generates data points that paint an unprecedented portrait of fandom itself.

The pitch remains the same 100-meter rectangle it’s always been. Everything else? Unrecognizable. Step inside any of the tournament’s venues and you’ll encounter two stadiums occupying the same physical space. The first is the one your eyes see: 80,000 seats, manicured grass, the roar of nations colliding. The second is an invisible architecture of apps, sensors, and platforms capturing how you move, what you watch, where you linger, and what makes you reach for your wallet.

The Intelligence Layer

Since 2022, FIFA and Globant have worked side by side to transform a fragmented landscape of platforms into a connected ecosystem designed for continuity, performance, growth, and continuous innovation. Key initiatives included building the foundations of FIFA+, enabling unified fan identity through FIFA ID as the backbone of a direct-to-fan strategy, developing the Tournament App as the gateway to live event participation, and scaling global content distribution across competitions.

As the scale and complexity of FIFA’s ecosystem increased, Globant introduced AI Pods, persistent execution units where AI-driven workflows perform the work, guided and supervised by Globant experts, delivering a 20% improvement in efficiency and delivery speed, greater predictability across execution cycles, and full traceability across workflows and decisions. This model enables FIFA to move from fragmented fan interactions to a unified, direct communication channel where every fan becomes identifiable, reachable, and monetizable over time, turning fan engagement into a continuous, data-driven relationship that drives long-term growth.

For leagues, teams, and sponsors, this represents the ability to activate fan data in ways that feel valuable, turning anonymous spectators into known customers with preferences you can actually serve. In our work with LALIGA, Globant’s teams manage 900 terabytes of data across more than 400 digital assets reaching 260 million fans, a scale of operation that would be operationally and financially unfeasible without AI-augmented delivery.

Here’s where things get genuinely interesting: the same platforms transforming how fans experience matches are now reshaping how the matches themselves are played.

Ahead of the World Cup, Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentine tactician charged with resurrecting American soccer on the world stage, selected Globant’s Sportian Performance platform to support the US Men’s National Team’s tactical preparation. The platform brings match data, video, and AI-powered insight into a single workspace, giving coaching staff live, in-match intelligence rather than after-the-fact analysis.

Pochettino isn’t an early adopter taking a flyer on unproven technology. The same coaching intelligence platform is already trusted by all 42 professional clubs of LALIGA and the Belgian Pro League. When one of the most respected coaches in world football builds his in-tournament strategy around your data platform, that tells you where competitive advantage in sport is heading.

From Saudi Arabia to the World: Building Without Legacy

To understand where sports technology is heading, look to Saudi Arabia, which is hosting the AFC Asian Cup 2027 and the FIFA World Cup 2034. The Kingdom is going through a generational infrastructure build-out that offers a preview of what’s possible when you design systems from scratch rather than retrofit them onto creaking legacy architectures. Saudi Arabia’s AI market is projected to reach $16.90 billion by 2032, growing at a 34.3% compound annual growth rate, driven by Vision 2030 and sustained government investment in digital transformation.

The Saudi Pro League serves as a laboratory for what elite competition management looks like when AI is applied properly: intelligent fixture scheduling that balances hundreds of sporting and operational constraints, operational forecasting for stadiums and security, and AI-generated reporting that frees competition staff to focus on strategy rather than paperwork.

Traditional sports technology projects often require large teams, extended timelines, and unpredictable outcomes. Globant has developed a unique delivery model to address this challenge through its AI Pods, subscription-based, AI-native teams where supervised, agent-orchestrated workflows take on work that used to require large traditional project teams. These pods are delivering results up to seven times faster than conventional approaches, drawing on access to more than 140 large language models depending on the use case. Within FIFA partnerships, AI Pods delivered work 20% faster with greater predictability and full visibility into execution. The gains compound: agents execute, experts supervise, and clients receive governed outputs at scale.

So what does any of this mean for someone with tickets to a match?

It means the app on your phone will know when you arrive, guide you to your seat, surface the video highlights you actually want to see, and remember that you prefer your beer cold and your merchandise in medium. It means the sponsors surrounding you, on screens, on surfaces, in the augmented overlays you might see through your phone’s camera, will have paid for access to an audience they can actually measure.

It means the coaching staff of both teams on that pitch will have prepared using AI-powered analysis. And it means the data generated by your presence, your attention and your engagement will feed into systems that make the next tournament, and the one after that, marginally better at understanding what you want.

The 2026 World Cup is a spectacle of athletic excellence. It is also a global test of whether technology can genuinely improve how we experience the things we love. Millions of fans. Billions of data points. This World Cup, we are finding out what connected fandom really means.