Tourism award winners honored

Credibility is a vital requirement for a successful publication, Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja has said.
The minister was addressing audiences at the Tourism Awards Ceremony held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh on Saturday. The winners were based on a recent tourism questionnaire distributed across the Kingdom by Sabq, the first online newspaper in Saudi Arabia.
Khoja, who distributed the awards to the winners, said that credibility can only be gained through reporting news from authentic and reliable sources. The minister insisted that whether it is print or electronic, the media outlets should always maintain credibility of their news organizations.
He congratulated the sponsor of the event and the prize winners for their achievements in their respective fields.
Sabq Tourism Awards aims to recognize market leaders in the hospitality and tourism industry across the region.
The category of "Best Hotel in the Arab World" had been put out as a public vote, of which Atlantis, The Palm garnered over 28,000 votes from across the country taking the first place.
Brett Armitage, senior vice president of sales at Atlantis, who received the award on behalf of his hotel, told Arab News that he was happy that his hotel got this prestigious award for being a symbol of hospitality for Saudis in the Kingdom.
Atlantis, The Palm, is a 1,539-room, ocean-themed destination resort located at the center of the crescent of the man-made Palm Island in Dubai. This $ 1.5 billion joint venture project was developed with the Dubai-based, government-owned Istithmar.
Launched in September 2008, the resort utilizes the 46-hectare site with 17 hectares of water park amusement, marine and entertainment attractions and a collection of some of the most renowned restaurants including Nobu, Ronda Locatelli, Ossiano and Rostang, the French brasserie.
Atlantis, The Palm offers an unprecedented entertainment center, an impressive collection of luxury boutiques and shops and extensive meeting and convention facilities. It is home to one of the largest open-air marine habitats in the world, with some 65,000 marine animals in lagoons and displays including The Lost Chambers, a maze of underwater corridors and passageways providing a journey through legendary Atlantis.
Armitage said the Kingdom is the third largest market for tourists traveling to the United Arab Emirates. In November alone, he said, it received some 1.2 million Saudi tourists during the Eid holiday season.
He pointed out that 25 percent of the UAE's tourists came from the GCC and the Middle Eastern countries, "out of which 40 percent was from Saudi Arabia,” Armitage said.
Citing reasons for attracting more Saudi tourists, he said that his hotel has Arabic-speaking staff to cater to the interests of GCC customers. “We also know the tastes of Saudi tourists and we offer tailor-made services for this important segment of our tourists,” he noted.
The Sabq quoted transport sources in Dubai, the region's business and tourism hub, as saying a taxi driver earned on average 800 dirhams daily from Saudis during the holiday in November last year compared to around 300 dirhams on normal days.
The sources estimated that Dubai, which has the second largest economy in the UAE, has nearly 10,000 taxi cabs and that they are favored by Saudi visitors.
"They estimated that Saudi visitors to Dubai spent around 80 million dirhams on taxi transport during their holiday in the emirate," the paper said.