Just five months after opening its doors to the public, Yas Waterworld Abu Dhabi swept away its formidable competition to claim the gong for the Middle East’s Leading Tourist Attraction 2013 at the World Travel Awards (WTA). The mega family entertainment attraction was lauded at the WTA Middle East ceremony recently held at Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort & Spa, Dubai.

The award was received by Mike Oswald, Park General Manager, who said: “When we launched the waterpark, our goal was to deliver an out-of-this-world experience to our guests and to receive this award just a few short months since starting our operations is a sign that we have been successful. This award is doubly satisfying as it is a vote of confidence from both consumers and our peers in the industry so it’s great to see that we have got the formula right straight off the bat.”

The mega waterpark beat some of the region’s most iconic tourist attractions including the Burj Khalifa, Ski Dubai and other waterparks such as Aquaventure, Atlantis The Palm and Wild Wadi, among others, to take home the prestigious prize.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the WTA serve to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the global travel and tourism industry. Today, the WTA brand is recognised globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire. Each year WTA travels the globe with a series of regional gala ceremonies staged to recognise and celebrate individual and collective successes within each key geographical region. The regional winners compete head to head in a final round of voting to decide who will triumph in WTA’s world awards – the ultimate accolade in the travel and tourism industry. The WTA Grand Final 2013 will take place in Las Vegas later this year.

The WTA award comes in the wake of a recent global ranking of the world’s top 20 waterparks by the Los Angeles Times, which named Yas Waterworld Abu Dhabi as the second best waterpark in the world – a hugely promising showing for a waterpark that has yet to hit six months of operations.

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