VisitAbuDhabi.ae – Abu Dhabi’s online destination resource - has been listed among top government portals by the 17th Annual Webby Awards, the yearly honours of The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences which recognise excellence on the Internet.

This is the first Webby award for an official destination portal in the Arab World. The Webby recognition named Abu Dhabi ‘Official Honouree’ in the ‘Government’ category alongside brands like NASA, New York and the City of London.

Some 11,000 entries from over 60 countries contested this year’s awards with the ‘Official Honouree’ distinction going to the top 15% of all work submitted that demonstrated remarkable achievement. Honourees were chosen by the academy’s international jury whose members include Tumblr founder David Karp, co-founder of Instagram Kevin Systrom, film director Darren Aronofsky, Huffington Post Media Group president Arianna Huffington, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, musician David Bowie, Internet co-creator Vint Cerf, Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson and R/GA chairman and CEO Bob Greenberg.

“Over the past year we have devoted considerable effort to upgrading our destination’s digital presence and this drive is still gathering pace with more product development in the pipeline,” said Khalid Al Hadi, Executive Director, Marketing & Communications, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority (TCA Abu Dhabi), which owns and operates Visitabudhabi.ae. “Naturally we are very gratified with this award which will spur us on to further expand the destination’s digital footprint.”

An upgraded version of Visitabudhabi.ae launched in June last year with a visual, user-friendly look, a new information architecture highlighting what to see and do in the emirate, more than 200,000 words in eight languages (English, Arabic, French, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese) and over 3,000 images. The website’s multilingual hotel search, aggregating live deals and room availability from over 50 booking engines, was complimented in late 2012 / early 2013 by the launch of a multilingual flight and car search engine with real-time results, and a trip planner facility which allows travellers to build and share their virtual trips to Abu Dhabi. Reaching over three million visits a year, with a daily average of over 8,000 clicks, further planned visitor experience enhancements include mobile applications on all key platforms: iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone.

Conceived with travellers’ needs in mind, visitabudhabi.ae is designed as a one-stop-shop for tourists who want to explore the emirate, giving them easy access to interact, in any of eight languages - Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Chinese - with extensive, dynamic information on Abu Dhabi’s attractions and experiences, culture and heritage, events and recreation activities. The destination’s social media channels invite travellers to become active contributors to the destination, to post, comment, get inspired and share their experience.

Stay in touch with the latest information on Abu Dhabi at:

visitabudhabi.ae
facebook.com/visitabudhabi
twitter.com/visitabudhabi
gplus.to/visitabudhabi
youtube.com/visitabudhabi
pinterest.com/visitabudhabi
foursquare.com/visitabudhabi

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