From Blank Canvas to 38 Million Visitors: Mohamed Al Zaabi on Building Yas Island

Mohamed Al Zaabi is the Group CEO of Miral Group, the force behind one of the world’s most dramatic tourism transformations - turning an artificial island in Abu Dhabi into a global destination drawing tens of millions of visitors. 

Under his leadership since the mid-2010s, Miral has overseen the creation, operation and evolution of immersive attractions, resorts, sports venues and digital experiences that have re-imagined what a destination can be in the 21st century.

Al Zaabi shares how he shaped strategy, consumer insight, global partnerships and execution to convert a “blank canvas” into a thriving tourism ecosystem, with plans that stretch well into the next decade.

In this episode we cover:

• Vision and context — How Al Zaabi scoped out the opportunity in the UAE’s tourism sector, adopting a customer-centric strategy that matched global leisure trends with diverse visitor needs and expectations.
• From concept to creation — The tactical challenges in developing Yas Island from nearly nothing into an entertainment and hospitality hub featuring marquee attractions like Ferrari World, Warner Bros. World, SeaWorld Abu Dhabi and more, designed to appeal to families and travellers from emerging and developed markets alike.
• Customer-led innovation — Why listening to real customer feedback (including early lessons from international market visits) drove Miral to build customizable online ticketing systems and create dedicated marketing/sales companies to better serve global travelers.
• Future growth and global partnerships — Al Zaabi details major upcoming initiatives, including expansions of existing parks (e.g., waterpark capacity increases), immersive experiences like TeamLab Phenomena, and landmark collaborations with global brands such as The Walt Disney Company to create a Disney theme park destination on Yas Island. 
• Sustainability and legacy — How Miral is aligning with the UAE’s net-zero ambitions through renewable energy adoption, plastic reduction, and eco-friendly hospitality — and why the legacy Al Zaabi wants to leave is people-centred (leaders, teams, communities) rather than just built environments.
• Driving record visitation — Yas Island has emerged as a world-class tourism magnet with over 38 million visits in 2024, underscoring Miral’s impact on Abu Dhabi’s global leisure appeal.

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Transcript

00:00:00 Nick LALL: Welcome to the Insead Emerging Markets Podcast Geek Edition. I'm your host, Nick Lall, as always, and I am here today with Mohamad Alzaabi. Very thrilled to have Mr. Alzaabi on the podcast, not only because he is one of the most exciting guests that I've had on the podcast, but also because I'm actually here live with him at the Miral headquarters, and it's just amazing to see his creation firsthand in front of my eyes. And so if you're not familiar with the Miral group, they have developed Yas Island and Saadiyat Island here in Abu Dhabi. The developments on the island include SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, Waterworld Abu Dhabi, Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, The Yas Island Marina, which is a fully serviced superyacht Marina with food and entertainment options as well. And they also have the Etihad Arena, which is the largest entertainment venue in the UAE. And all this has been built basically in the last decade since Mr. Alzaabi took over the Miral group. And so it's very rare that something like this happens in the world, building an island from scratch basically, to thirty four million visitors last year. And it's even rare to get to be in the presence of the person who created that. So really excited to learn more about the details of how this was all done. Also, I'm sure that you have a lot of exciting plans for the future. But before we get into all that, I thought that it might be interesting just to go back to twenty fifteen when you took over as CEO of Miral Where were you in your life at that time? Where was Abu Dhabi? How did you have the vision in your mind to create all of this, and how did you know that it was achievable? We'd love just to learn more about what your plans for morale were, and how you knew that you could execute them.

00:01:35 Mohamed AL ZAABI: Thank you. It's a pleasure to have you today, and thank you for reaching out to us. And welcome again to morale. Don't make it too formal. You can call me. Call me Muhammad. There's no need to make it too formal and privilege to be here. Part of this industry and I think always timing works sometimes in your behalf or on your side. We're very lucky to be in this industry. Abu Dhabi has been evolving over the last, I would say twenty years. And since I joined Miral, we have enjoyed, very positive trend of improvement in tourism sector specifically. And the island here. we have been growing year on year, and I'm very, very proud of what my team and I have achieved here on the island.

00:02:18 Nick LALL: Amazing in that experience. Was wondering if you could talk about any of the challenges that you faced. Was there any moment where you questioned whether this was possible or you had a really difficult challenge to overcome, and how did you do that? I'm always interested in learning how leaders make it through tough times.

00:02:33 Mohamed AL ZAABI: The first reflect, maybe for the audience to better understand. Yes, Arnold's story. So yes, Arnold was literally a blank canvas in twenty seven twenty eight, and only formula one was the first event we had in twenty nine. And then we opened Ferrari World, Warner Brothers, and recently we opened SeaWorld, along with that, ten hotels on the island. One of the best golf courses in the region. Ranked number forty six in the world. And of course, all that is under development, which is the largest mall in Abu Dhabi. Welcoming thirty four million visitors last year was a great achievement that we are very proud of. That could not have been achieved without a clear strategy that you put in twenty fifteen to promote Yas Island as an international destination for entertainment and leisure, and to create that, you need to make sure you, create enough experiences for all segments and all family members. And that was one of the challenges, how we can make sure that your attractions are good enough for kids, adults, senior, and also different segments from different source market. We attract visitors from India, from China, from Europe, from GCC, from Russia, as well as other countries around the world. so it's not easy to achieve that. But I think, by understanding what's coming in the future and, listening to your customer more closely understand their feedback, their comments, and how you can move fast and adopt your attractions or facilities to suit Western market requirements and the customer requirements. I think that's the secret for success. We're very flexible, we're very agile, and We try to move very fast. We are trying to keep our ears very close to our guests and customers feedback. We try to listen to their comments on social media. We try to get their feedback through different surveys. And we do a lot of study every single year to better understand our customer needs, behavior and what they're looking for. But more interestingly, is the evolvement of the customer behavior over years. they became. More demanding, I would say they are expecting, better control compared to twenty years back. Now the customer wants to control what he wants, at what time and what kind of experience he wants. You can't impose experience to customers anymore. early twenty years. You could. But now with online, with different experiences, with the knowledge that guests have already today, you cannot impose experiences. You have to allow them and give them the option to customize and tailor the experience as they wish, as they want, and when they want it. we have been trying to utilize, digital and technology to achieve that as much as we can. I don't think we are there. That is a race that you will never cross the finish line. You will always try to evolve and develop your technologies and systems to make sure you are up to a customers and guest expectations. Sure, it's.

00:05:44 Nick LALL: Really interesting to hear that this is an emerging market podcast. We go around the world talking about emerging markets and the fact that you are a world class destination, but you've actually focused on getting consumers from emerging market countries like India, China, local GCC consumers as well. I think that that's really interesting, and we'd love to learn a little bit more about how you market to those customers from all those different places and what stories you tell to make them attracted to Yas Island, but was also interested in that last point that you made, that it's really consumer driven. It's the customers that are making the decisions. I was wondering how that plays a role in your plans. And also, maybe if you could give examples of the ways your developments are really customer driven and different tools that you've implemented to make it that way.

00:06:25 Mohamed AL ZAABI: We want to listen to our customers, listen to their needs, and fulfill that need. That's our philosophy. Don't try to do things that you want. Do things that the customer wants. And that's where the biggest challenge with business owners and entrepreneurs, where they try to impose what they believe is the right thing. That sometimes could work, but I believe it's much better to listen to customer feedback and adopt what they want. So I remember in twenty sixteen I was in China and meeting partners there. And the ask is very simple why I cannot buy package directly from you. I looked at my friends and my colleagues. That's very simple question why they have to go through different channels, different partners to buy package, get all the options they could go through, travel agency, they could go to, their own preferred partners, but give them also to buy tickets online. So immediately I asked my team to build a system that open internationally online, where they can buy tickets either for a consumer or business partners, and they have option to even customize and tailor the experiences. For example, they can buy a theme park ticket plus room. Plus other experiences. They can combine that with other attractions like glue, for example. And that gives them freedom to package based on their needs. The second thing we built also after that trip, we decided to build a new company dedicated just for marketing and sales. We were a bit scattered. We had too many different departments in the group. The forces were not aligned in one direction. So guys, let's create a new company. We called it destination. I will come back to you. It's interesting story about destination. The focus of that company is just to promote the island and make it easy for our partner to get whatever they need from logistics point of view, from availability of product services and make it available at their fingertips. And we have achieved that and very proud to see the growth of transactions through Mirror Destination, and we sold more than one hundred and fifty thousand room nights last year, only through that channel, online and using under umbrella of mirror distinction. But when we start to go back to the story, it's very interesting. We start the company called Jazz Hub. I remember, and the focus was we are just jazz and we're selling jazz experiences. But as we go, we learn from customers that that's that's not what they want. They actually want more than they want to buy jazz plus other destination i.e. Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi. And they wanted a company that makes it easier for them to have products available at the right time. So we enlarge the vision and scope of Miral. So at that time, we even changed the name of the company to Miral destination to focus on as destination and as key destinations, but also serve other attractions in Abu Dhabi where you can combine different experiences. And I'll go back to our philosophy of listening to customers and change our business fast enough to respond to our customers. And that's the secret of our success here in Ireland.

00:09:51 Nick LALL: And I've been telling my friends since I've been here, it just feels like you're living in the future. And it's not just that there's so many exciting new technologies, it's also the processes of the way things are done. They just make sense and they have the customer in mind. And it's really amazing how you've been able to foster that culture of innovation, not just in technology, but how the customers served. And be curious. That last point that you made about expanding beyond Yas Island into Abu Dhabi and Saadiyat Island, I was wondering if you could talk about some of the other plans that you have for the future, the next five years where you see morale going.

00:10:21 Mohamed AL ZAABI: In a single year. We study twenty five to thirty ideas. And so we're very busy on exploring many, many ideas and many concepts, many developments. And that could be improving customer experience. That could be a new attractions, that could be improving rides or adding one ride or adding a theme park. this year we are very busy with, of course, our next flagship is Harry Potter expansion and at Warner Brothers World Abu Dhabi. And that would be a very large expansion, attached to Warner Brothers. That would be fully indoor as well. And, we're at final stage of finalizing the design. And the second project which will open in a few weeks, is Teamlab phenomena, that is in collaboration with the Department of Culture and Tourism. It's the first project, for Teamlab, where we designed the building to fit their needs. And, it's amazing the building is amazing. But also experience inside using Teamlab technology is extraordinary, I would say. And that's the next project. And then the third one I would mention is Expansion of Water World. We are adding eighteen more rides and attractions and water world that will expand the capacity of that park by twenty percent. And based on the trend we see in the state of last year with such increased. And this will open this summer, inshallah, we're also adding, uh, beach at Yas Bay, and that should be ready this year as well. We are expanding, other, theme parks, adding more rides. And, one of the things we noticed that there is high demand of themed hotels. So that's one of the ideas we are exploring now, how we can add more, hotels on the island after the success of Warner Brothers Hotel. Warner Brothers Hotel, as you know, is the first Warner Brothers hotel in the world. having Warner Brothers, brand. And that opened three years back. We're very happy with the occupancy of that hotel. I'll give you an example, which is summer time. It was eighty three percent, during July and August, but August itself only was ninety two percent occupancy at month, with very, decent, daily rate where they have the performance that hotel. So we thought it might be good to add more hotels on the island to again fulfill our guest, requirements and needs.

00:12:45 Nick LALL: Absolutely. And it seems that you've made partnerships with some of the biggest global brands, whether that's Warner Brothers or Ferrari or SeaWorld. I was wondering if you talk a little bit about the process of forming these partnerships, especially back in twenty fifteen before all this was built. How did you sell these global brands on the potential of Yas Island? How did you form the partnership, and what does it take to form a good partnership with a global brand like Warner Brothers or SeaWorld?

00:13:07 Mohamed AL ZAABI: I believe in one thing. I believe in small steps, but I believe, also on speed. So if you move fast with small steps, I think you can crack and overcome many challenges. And that's what we have done. We started with Ferrari. That wasn't easy to convince. one of the most prestigious brand to build a theme park. It was a long discussion between us, and Ferrari. We convinced them eventually to open Ferrari World here, and that was very successful idea. And now they opened Ferrari Land in Spain. Then we built relation with Warner Brothers and that's what made us, known for good relation with IP protecting IP here in the region, how the quality of the project that we deliver, how we maintain their brand guidelines, their brand expectation, and in many cases we actually exceeded the expectation. And very proud of, SeaWorld Abu Dhabi, which we call it SeaWorld two point oh, where we have elevated so many experiences here and make it indoor, very themed and immersive experience in Abu Dhabi. Our partner SeaWorld, US, very, satisfied, very happy of what you have done here. And there are so many technologies that they will take back to us to implement in their theme park. And we're here to also expand the relationship with SeaWorld and to even build more attractions and explore other ideas. And by building better or good relation with those IPS, this will just help us to open other doors. with other IPS. Example Teamlab. And it was much easier to convince them to come to Abu Dhabi. They have seen it. They have seen the quality of what we can deliver, here in Abu Dhabi. And at this stage now, people reach out to us, guys, we'd love to work with you. And that is what we built over a decade. But that is the smallest step that we take every time. But again, move fast.

00:15:04 Nick LALL: Definitely.

00:15:05 Mohamed AL ZAABI: Yeah.

00:15:06 Nick LALL: Definitely was very fast over the last decade a lot. You mentioned that because of the quality of what you've done, people are reaching out to you now. And one thing that I didn't mention is that your developments are also net zero. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you ensure that quality, how you also plan developments while making sure that they are also net zero, because that's an additional step that I'm sure makes it even harder. But it's also really impressive that you have that in mind.

00:15:28 Mohamed AL ZAABI: Morale has been always a key player in Abu Dhabi supporting Abu Dhabi to achieve, first of all, the application of the economy, but also sustainability, vision and government. UAE government have very clear strategy, very clear targets to achieve net zero by twenty fifty, and morale will be always a key player in achieving that. target, are very proud of what my team has achieved so far. worried about, for example, Forty five percent of the energy comes from solar energy today. And what about us? We installed solar panels on the roof in collaboration with Masdar. We also did the same with Sea World. I think twenty five twenty seven of energy comes from solar energy. We removed all plastic from our project. And sustainability is a key pillar. And we know that our customer even has better statistics. Now nine out of ten customers prefer to stay in eco friendly hotels. So it's not only a government target. Now even customer would prefer to stay with eco friendly attractions and hotels. So we have to move fast. We have to adapt with what's happening in the market. And that's what you have been doing. there are so many initiatives we are working with my team to achieve in that pillar. And sustainability will be always a key pillar in our strategy.

00:16:53 Nick LALL: Yeah, absolutely. I think we're seeing all over the world that there is the market demand for it. So it's not just being pushed by governments, it's what customers want. And the companies that are smart are going that way. Maybe. One final question. You're clearly an amazing leader. You've achieved a lot leading a very large organization. I was wondering if you have thoughts on the legacy that you'd like to leave?

00:17:12 Mohamed AL ZAABI: I don't think it's about buildings. I don't think it's about attractions. I think it's about people. If there's a legacy that I want to leave behind me, I want to leave behind me people who are successful, who I held them in a way, Another to evolve, to grow and to develop in me. And that is my passion. I'd love to see my team achieving more, and I'd love to support them, to unleash their talents and to see them evolving, growing, and see them playing a bigger role. And we're all or even outside mirror. That's the legacy that leave behind.

00:17:50 Nick LALL: Amazing. Thank you so much. It was really great to meet you.

00:17:52 Mohamed AL ZAABI: Thank you. Nick.