Disneyland Abu Dhabi Expected To Open Within Five Years

Disney’s new theme park in Abu Dhabi is expected to open by 2030, beating arch-rival Universal’s upcoming outpost in the United Kingdom by a year.

As this report forecast on Monday, Disney’s chief executive Bob Iger announced at a glittering ceremony today that the media giant will build its seventh resort in Abu Dhabi which has become a powerhouse of the theme park industry.

Abu Dhabi is already home to SeaWorld, Warner Bros. and Ferrari theme parks with a land based on Harry Potter in development. Due to the heat in the United Arab Emirates, the parks are all indoors and have been praised for being the best in their class. They are all on the man-made Yas Island which is where Disney’s new resort will also be located, though unlike its counterparts, concept art shows that it appears to be a hybrid of indoor and outdoor attractions.

Disney will be the jewel in Yas Island’s crown and is a crucial part of a long-term strategy to diversify the UAE’s economy due to dwindling fossil fuel reserves.

The UAE is pouring its profits from oil into leisure investments and it is paying off. The country’s GPD – the value of all of the goods and services it produces – rose 3.9% in 2024 with its central bank saying that this was driven by its non-oil economy. This grew 4.6% last year and is expected to increase by 5.1% in 2025. Theme parks are at the vanguard of this as Yas Island recorded more than 38 million visits in 2024, 10% more than the previous year.

Last year, the number of hotel guests across the UAE rose 9.5% to 30.8 million, representing 77% of the 2031 target set by the country’s National Tourism Strategy. It hit this milestone seven years ahead of schedule and Disneyland Abu Dhabi should accelerate that even more.

It will be the media giant’s first park in the Middle East and its first new outpost since it launched Shanghai Disney in 2016. Disneyland Abu Dhabi will also be its first park which is directly on the waterfront with concept art showing an icy version of its trademark castle sitting right on the beach. It is set to cast a powerful spell.

“Our resort in Abu Dhabi will be the most advanced and interactive destination in our portfolio,” Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney’s Experiences theme park segment, said in a press release. “This groundbreaking resort destination represents a new frontier in theme park development.”

It will give a magic touch to Disney’s bottom line which is already rosy. In the three months ended March 30, Disney made operating profits of $4.4 billion on revenue which rose 7% to $23.6 billion. Its new resort will give a glow to both its top and bottom line as Disney will receive licensing income from it but won’t need to foot the cost of developing or building it.

ForbesDisney Announces New Disneyland Theme Park In Abu DhabiBy Megan duBois

That’s because it will be developed and built by government-backed Miral which operates Yas Island and its theme parks. It is a similar model to the one at Tokyo Disneyland, which is owned and operated by the Oriental Land Company (OLC), a specialist leisure venue operator listed on Japan’s Nikkei stock exchange.

OLC contracts Disney’s Imagineering design division to develop the attractions and hotels at Tokyo Disneyland and the media giant also earns royalties on revenues generated by the resort. According to filings for other foreign Disney parks “the royalty rate charged by TWDC [The Walt Disney Company] on Disney resorts outside the United States is largely the same at 5% to 10% of revenues, depending on the source of revenues (e.g. merchandise, food and beverage, admission, etc.)”

Disney does not disclose the precise royalty level but according to a 2017 report by market research firm Skift, Disney’s effective royalty rate (based on parks and hotels) averaged at 6.1% over eleven years. In the year to March 31, 2025, that yielded $266 million or 2.9% of Disney’s $9.3 billion Experiences segment operating income.

As Disney doesn’t have to spend any money on capital expenditure or park operations in Tokyo, the royalties are pure profit. The same will be true in Abu Dhabi and Disney stockholders won’t have to wait long to get this happy ending.

Last week, this author was briefed that today’s announcement will showcase “Yas Island’s vision for the next five years” putting the new Disney park on track for completion by 2030, one year ahead of Universal Studios Great Britain.

ForbesDisney Is Building A New Theme Park In Abu Dhabi—Here’s What We KnowBy Alison Durkee

Ironically, a Universal theme park in Dubai, the other major city in the UAE, was in development until the 2009 financial crisis brought the curtain down on it. There is a tremendous affinity for American brands in the UAE with local branches of retail chains including OshKosh B’gosh, Williams Sonoma, Payless ShoeSource, Bloomingdale’s, Bath & Body Works, Pottery Barn, ACE and The Children’s Place, which once held the Disney Store license. The same goes for restaurants as there are outlets of Applebee’s, Black Tap, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chuck E. Cheese, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, IHOP and even Orlando-based casual dining chain Tony Roma’s, once owned by Clint Murchison Jr., founder of the Dallas Cowboys.

These chains are in the UAE because a staggering 88.5% of its 10.2 million residents are expats. There is good reason for this. The UAE is located within a four-hour flight of one-third of the world’s population, making it a significant gateway for tourism. It is also home to the largest global airline hub in the world, with 120 million passengers traveling through Abu Dhabi and Dubai each year.

As this author reported earlier this week, Disneyland Abu Dhabi will ensure that the Mouse has more theme parks than Universal in the crucial Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA) region. Universal’s U.K. park is expected to be joined by one in India giving it two outposts in the EMEIA region. Disney already has two parks in Paris so Abu Dhabi will help it retain its crown. There may be more to come.

Yas Island has available land equivalent to around six times the footprint of Hong Kong Disneyland. Perhaps alluding to Walt Disney World in Orlando, which is home to four theme parks and two waterparks, Miral’s chairman, His Excellency Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, said “what we are creating with Disney in Abu Dhabi is a whole new world of imagination – an experience that will inspire generations across the region and the world, creating magical moments and memories that families will treasure forever. Through the development of unique attractions and experiences, Abu Dhabi continues to reinforce its position as a leading global destination for cultural and family tourism.”

The announcement follows the debut of the first Disney Stores in Abu Dhabi and Dubai over the past few months despite the bricks and mortar shops closing in most regions around the world.

Miral is already making the most of its partnership with Disney as it is tonight hosting largest fireworks display in Yas Island’s history with a drone show and fountains dancing in time to classic Disney tunes which will be played by renowned pianist Lang Lang. Even for an experienced operator like Miral, it will be a whole new world.