Online Excursion Curator DayAway Debuts in UAE

Online experience-booking platform DayAway has now begun operating in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a press release said.

DayAway connects guests with “unique, engaging and restorative” daytime activities, including wellness, dining and other things.

In the UAE, DayAway will offer things including a “Precious Pearl Experience” at the Waldorf Astoria Dubai Palm Jumeirah, and a “Bedouin Desert Adventure” at Telal Resort Al Ain. There’s also the “Ultimate Island Daycation” at InterContinental Ras Al Khaimah.

DayAway was rolled out in 2021 in Singapore and has numerous hotel partners, also expanding to Hong Kong, Thailand and Australia since its initial launch.

“We are delighted to have expanded into the UAE, a dynamic destination that has a reputation for providing a diverse range of luxury experiences,” said Martha Waslen, Founder and CEO of DayAway. “Our mission at DayAway is to elevate the everyday, and we’re defining a new era of luxury experiences that we hope will provide our community with opportunities to experience their favourite hotels in exciting and meaningful ways.”

She added that luxury hotels can be a “unique opportunity” to connect with the economy by offering specific experiences for travelers, and DayAway adds new tech and marketing tools to help with that.

The UAE has been a big location for new business in general — PYMNTS has reported recently that the area is the new leading destination for venture capital investment.

Read more: UAE Attracts $700M in H1 2022 Investment, Maintains Position as MENA’s VC Capital

In the first half of the year, companies from the region got 85 deals done, which totaled $699 million in investment, per data from MAGNiTT.

Through both total funding and the amount of completed deals, the UAE fintech sector was the most successful in terms of raking in the investor dollars. That made up 34% of the total capital invested and 22% of all VC transactions in the area in the first half of 2022.

For all PYMNTS EMEA coverage, subscribe to the daily EMEA Newsletter.