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Shamsa Entertainment City opens in Aljada with family fun until September

Shamsa Entertainment City has opened its doors in Aljada, and it gives families a fresh reason to head out this summer. The open-air venue runs until 5 September under the theme “Shamsa Festival, Where Joy Shines”. It sits inside Sharjah Summer Promotions 2026, the emirate’s yearly push to bring shoppers and visitors out during the warmer months.

The Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority organise the venue together. Their pitch is simple. Give families interactive activities and outdoor entertainment, and lift the local economy at the same time.

What Shamsa Entertainment City offers

Picture a summer hub built for kids and parents. Interactive games and open-air fun fill the space in Aljada Sharjah, one of the emirate’s newer community districts. The layout leans on hands-on play rather than passive screens, which keeps younger visitors moving. That setting matters. Aljada already pulls crowds for dining and events, so the venue lands where people already are.

You do not have to travel far to reach it. That is the whole idea. Organisers want a spot that feels close, easy, and worth the trip on a hot afternoon.

Inside Sharjah Summer Promotions 2026

Shamsa Entertainment City is one piece of a much larger campaign. Sharjah Summer Promotions 2026 reaches across Sharjah City, the Central Region, and the East Coast towns of Khorfakkan, Kalba, and Dibba Al Hisn. Shoppers can find discounts of up to 75 percent across thousands of retail outlets and shopping malls.

The season offers more than shopping. Families also get over 60 Sharjah tourism packages and experiences, plus more than 700 prizes for visitors. Over 55 public and private partners back the programme, which shows how much weight the emirate puts behind it.

Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Chairman of the Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority, said the campaign aimed to strengthen Sharjah’s position as a tourism and family destination. He described a summer atmosphere that brings together entertainment, creativity, and community engagement for citizens, residents, and tourists.

Why the venue matters now

Mohammad Ahmed Amin Al Awadi, Director-General of SCCI, said the launch reflected the chamber’s work to support economic activity and community well-being. Read between the lines, and the plan is clear. Entertainment brings families in. Families spend. Retail and tourism both gain.

Sharjah has run this play before. The 2025 edition drew strong turnout and gave local businesses a measurable lift. This year’s version stretches the summer season longer and adds more partners, so the emirate is building on something that already works. The model rewards repeat visits, and that is where the real value sits for organisers.

For families weighing where to spend a summer day, the appeal is practical. You get activities for the kids, deals for the household, and a short drive rather than a long one. That mix turns a one-time visit into a habit, and it positions Sharjah as a family destination worth returning to.

Shamsa Entertainment City runs through early September, which leaves plenty of weekends to plan around. If you live in or near the emirate, the calendar is on your side. The venue and the wider campaign both wind down before the school term picks up, so the window is open now.

UAE music licence for businesses starts in December with new annual fees

A UAE music licence for businesses will soon shape the cost of playing a song in public. From December 2026, restaurants, cafes, hotels, malls, gyms and airlines that play music must hold one. The Ministry of Economy and Tourism set out the rules in a new guide on music rights. The guide covers a wide list of venues. Radio stations, TV channels, concerts and similar events fall under it too. Each licence lasts one year and can be renewed. Fee brackets depend on how the music is used and how big the business is.

Who collects the UAE music licensing fees?

Two Ministry-approved bodies will handle the UAE music licence for businesses. The Emirates Music Rights Association and Music Nation UAE act for the rights holders. That pool includes composers, singers, record producers and publishers. They will issue the permits and take in the money.

The Ministry did not publish exact fee amounts. What it did confirm is the shape of the fees. Live music and DJ sets tend to cost more. Smaller venues with background music should pay less. Not every place has to pay. Schools and academic bodies are exempt. Government offices, national events and private, non-commercial parties also sit outside the rules. The Ministry can add more exempt groups later.

Why the UAE music licence for businesses matters now

Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of Economy and Tourism, tied the move to the wider economy. He said the UAE backs its music and creative sectors as it works to widen its income. The minister called the guide one step toward a full system for copyright and related rights. It fits the goals of UAE Vision 2031.

Here is the practical read. The commercial use of music UAE venues rely on is now a paid, tracked activity. Pressing play on a home streaming app and hoping no one asks carries real risk. If you run a venue, this is your cue to check your setup. The framework rests on the UAE copyright law. Back in 2021, the country reshaped that law with fresh rules on copyright and neighbouring rights. Those rules created public performance rights across the country. Now the guide gives them a way to be enforced and paid.

The guide also sets up a Cultural Support Fund in the Field of Music. It will give money, technical help and artistic support for writing, production and live shows. Support targets new talent, including children, youth and people of determination. The fund will also carry Emirati music abroad. Ten per cent of all fees collected will feed this fund. A joint team from the Ministry of Economy and Tourism and the Ministry of Culture will run it. The collecting bodies must keep a separate bank account for the fund’s share.

Oversight and disputes

The Ministry will watch the licensed bodies for compliance with the UAE copyright law. Checks include field visits and reviews of financial and technical records. Complaints from rights holders will be handled too, with calm settlements sought or action taken where needed.

One line stands out. The Ministry keeps the right to change licence terms when the rules or public interest call for it, and licensees must comply at once. For venues, the UAE music licence for businesses is now a fixed cost of running a room with a soundtrack. My read: firms that move early will feel the least pain.

Al Balad Development Company partnership with Al Ittihad Club reaches platinum

The Al Balad Development Company’s partnership with Al Ittihad Club has moved to platinum sponsorship, a step that links a football club to the long effort to rebuild one of Saudi Arabia’s oldest urban districts. This Al Ittihad Club platinum sponsorship replaces the silver tier the two sides agreed in 2023. It shifts the relationship from media and marketing visibility toward a season-long program of activities connected to Historic Jeddah.

Al Balad Development Company, known as BDC, is wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund. It serves as the master developer of the Jeddah Historical District, the walled old town listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Al Ittihad Club, founded in Jeddah in 1927, is the oldest sports club in the country and carries a large regional following. Placing the two side by side puts heritage development next to one of the city’s most visible cultural assets.

What the agreement covers

Under the agreement, presented on their official website, both sides will draw on a range of media and marketing assets alongside community initiatives and events across the season. The activities will promote the cultural offerings of Historic Jeddah and BDC’s own projects. Shared content, supporter experiences, and district events form the core of the plan. The intent is to pull fans closer to the old town and to raise engagement with the district among younger residents.

Jamil Hassan Ghaznawi, CEO of Al Balad Development Company, said the partnership would help promote the company’s projects, attract visitors and investors, and support economic activity in the area. He noted the collaboration builds on the club’s long connection with Jeddah and its supporter base. The focus, he said, would fall on experiences that join sport, culture, and the historic district.

“We believe that reviving Historic Jeddah extends beyond urban regeneration to fostering sustainable connections between people and their environment. Partnering with Al Ittihad Club, backed by its massive fanbase is a pivotal step forward. It allows us to showcase our projects, attract visitors and investors, and drive regional economic activity.”, Jamil Hassan Ghaznawi said.

The Al Balad Development Company partnership and Vision 2030

The Al Balad Development Company partnership sits inside a wider structural shift. BDC works under the Public Investment Fund’s strategy and under Saudi Vision 2030, the plan to move the economy away from oil. Tourism, hospitality, and cultural sectors carry a defined role in that plan. A sponsorship that fills stadiums and feeds social channels becomes a route to an audience for a development brand that needs one.

Domingos Soares, CEO of Al Ittihad Club, said the club’s long relationship with Jeddah and its community gave the expanded partnership a firm base. He added the sponsorship would support work designed to bring supporters closer to the cultural and social life of the old district while adding value for fans and the city.

A club as a development tool

The reasoning is direct. BDC is developing roughly 2.5 million square meters of the historic core, with plans for homes, hotels, and commercial space, while keeping the district’s architectural character. A project on that scale needs footfall and attention. Al Ittihad supplies both.

The Al Balad Development Company partnership also shows how PIF-owned entities now work in concert. PIF holds a majority stake in Al Ittihad and full ownership of BDC. Sponsorship between the two keeps investment and messaging inside one portfolio. For the district, the return will show less in logo placement and more in whether the club’s supporters follow their team into Historic Jeddah’s streets, hotels, and cultural venues over the season ahead.

Photo Credit: The Al Balad Development Company

Dubai Duty Free now accepts crypto payments across DXB and online channels

Dubai Duty Free now accepts crypto payments, a step that puts one of the world’s largest single-airport retailers inside Dubai’s wider move toward digital money. The retailer has become the first airport operator in the Middle East to add Crypto.com Pay as a regulated digital payment option. Eligible customers can use it at Dubai International Airport (DXB), at Al Maktoum International Airport, and on the online store at dubaidutyfree.com.

The rollout completes a partnership the two companies signed in July 2025. Back then, Dubai Duty Free and Crypto.com agreed a memorandum of understanding to study blockchain-based payments and other digital commerce ideas. That study has now turned into a live service.

How the payment works

The system sits inside the checkout customers already use. In a store, the point-of-sale terminal creates a QR code showing the amount in UAE dirhams. The shopper scans it with the Crypto.com app and approves the payment from a digital wallet. Online, the same QR flow appears before the order goes through. Dubai Duty Free receives its settlement in UAE dirhams through Crypto.com’s regulated payment infrastructure, so the retailer never holds the digital asset itself.

Access is limited. Only eligible UAE residents with a Crypto.com account can use the service for now. Ramesh Cidambi, managing director of Dubai Duty Free, said the launch moves the July agreement into its roll-out phase and adds convenience for customers while supporting Dubai’s goal of leading global digital commerce. Eric Anziani, president and chief operating officer of Crypto.com, described the launch as another milestone in bringing regulated digital payments into everyday spending.

Why Dubai Duty Free now accepts crypto payments under central-bank rules

The service runs under the framework set by the Central Bank of the UAE. Crypto.com said it is the first Virtual Asset Service Provider in the country to receive a Stored Value Facilities licence from the central bank, which lets it offer regulated payment services. Because Dubai Duty Free now accepts crypto payments under that licence, each transaction stays inside central-bank supervision. That licence is the reason the offer counts as a regulated digital payment option rather than an informal crypto transfer.

This detail carries weight for the region. For years, crypto in the Gulf sat outside clear rules. A central-bank licence changes the footing, because it lets a large, cash-heavy retailer take digital-asset payments without stepping outside supervision.

Where this fits in Dubai’s plan

Dubai Duty Free now accepts crypto payments alongside Apple Pay, Alipay and TerraPay, its existing digital options. The addition feeds directly into the Dubai Cashless Strategy under the Dubai Economic Agenda, known as D33. That plan targets 90 percent of financial transactions across the public and private sectors to be cashless by the end of 2026.

Seen at scale, Dubai Duty Free crypto payments form one node in a much larger shift. Travel retail moves a high volume of transactions across many currencies and many nationalities. Adding a regulated crypto rail to that flow tests whether digital assets can work for routine buying rather than trading alone.

The wider signal is about method, not novelty. When Dubai Duty Free now accepts crypto payments through a licensed provider, it shows the emirate routing new payment types through its regulator instead of around it. For a city aiming to sit among the world’s top cashless economies, that route matters more than the technology on show.

Emirates NBD acquires HSBC Egypt retail arm in regional expansion push

Emirates NBD acquires HSBC Egypt’s retail banking business under a definitive agreement announced on Sunday, a plan that widens the Dubai lender’s consumer reach in the Arab world’s most populous market. The wholly owned Egyptian unit, Emirates NBD Egypt, will take on the portfolio once regulators sign off. Neither bank disclosed the price. Let’s see what the deal covers.

The transaction moves HSBC Egypt’s retail banking assets and liabilities to Emirates NBD Egypt. Retail banking covers everyday services for individual customers, such as accounts, deposits, loans and cards. Included in the sale are HSBC Egypt’s branches, its ATM network, its customer base and the employees who support the business. Customers of HSBC Egypt retail banking face no immediate change, and their products keep running as normal while the two sides prepare the handover.

Why does Emirates NBD acquire HSBC Egypt now?

Egypt sits near the center of Emirates NBD’s regional growth plan. The bank describes the country as a core market central to those ambitions. Emirates NBD entered the Egyptian market in 2013 and has expanded its branch network since. Adding the HSBC book builds scale in retail and premium banking, the service tier aimed at higher-income clients. This Emirates NBD acquisition also deepens ties along the UAE-Egypt banking corridor, the flow of trade, payments and investment between the two economies.

HSBC steps back from Egyptian retail

For HSBC, the sale trims a business the group no longer treats as core. The lender has operated in Egypt since 1982. This HSBC Egypt sale follows a strategic review announced in 2025, part of a wider effort to simplify the group and focus where it holds stronger positions. HSBC expects a pre-tax gain of about $300 million, which it plans to book mostly at completion. The group keeps its corporate and institutional banking arm in the country, so it narrows its presence rather than leaving.

Hesham Abdulla Al Qassim, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Emirates NBD and Chairman of Emirates NBD Egypt, said the investment reflects the bank’s confidence in Egypt’s market and its long-term growth prospects. Group Chief Executive Shayne Nelson described the purchase as a step in the bank’s regional strategy and its plan to grow its customer base in the country. Both sides target the second half of 2027 for completion, subject to regulatory approvals, including clearance from the Central Bank of Egypt.

What it means for customers

As Emirates NBD acquires HSBC Egypt’s retail arm, customers keep their accounts, cards and services for now. No account will change hands until regulators approve the deal and the two banks complete the transfer. HSBC and Emirates NBD said they will work together on a smooth move for staff and customers. Anyone with an HSBC Egypt account can keep using it as usual in the meantime.

What comes next

Amr ElShafei, Chief Executive and Managing Director of Emirates NBD Egypt, said the bank looks forward to welcoming HSBC customers and offering digital services backed by the wider group. Once Emirates NBD acquires HSBC Egypt, the lender gains more current accounts, deposits and card relationships across a combined branch and digital network. The full effect on customers will depend on how the two banks manage the transfer through 2027.

Elon Musk’s X Money offers a 6% yield, but the paywall is the catch here

Elon Musk’s X Money went live in the US in late July, and the headline number is a 6% yield. The rate looks generous. Getting it is another matter. X selects who joins, limits the service to US residents, and sets an age floor of 18. You also need a paid X account before the door opens at all. The catch sits in the fine print. Premium+ subscribers qualify for the 6% APY through their tier. Anyone on Premium reaches the same rate only after a qualifying direct deposit, which means at least $1,000 landing in the account. X calls the rate variable and warns fees can eat into what you earn.

What you actually pay to earn 6%

Run the math, and the shine dulls. X Premium starts at $8 a month, or $84 a year on the annual plan. Premium+ costs $40 a month, or $395 a year. Those fees do not vanish. They come straight out of your interest. Say you pay $8 monthly. Over a year that is $96. A 6% return on $1,600 also comes to $96 before tax. Your yield and your subscription cancel out. On the annual $84 plan, you would need roughly $1,400 sitting in the account to break even. Premium+ raises the bar hard. Its $395 annual fee needs about $6,583 at 6% to cover the cost. Pay monthly, and the total climbs to $480, pushing the break-even balance near $8,000. If you already buy Premium for verification, ads, or Grok, that changes the sum. Someone who signed up only for the yield sees a much smaller net return.

How Elon Musk’s X Money is built

Underneath Elon Musk’s X Money sits a bank partnership. X Payments runs the front end, but it is not a bank. Cross River Bank holds the deposits and provides the regulated banking underneath. X also spreads eligible balances across partner banks through a cash sweep program. That structure lets the published terms advertise up to $10 million in aggregate FDIC coverage. Standard protection stays at $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per ownership category. X Payments itself carries no FDIC insurance. The product does more than pay interest. An X Money Visa debit card gives 3% cashback on eligible purchases, with no foreign transaction fees. X refunds ATM charges within three days. Because Visa accepts the card everywhere, you can spend outside the app. Peer-to-peer transfers, bill pay, wires, mailed checks, and early direct deposit round out the account.

Who gets in, and who waits

Elon Musk’s X Money eligibility comes down to three gates. First, an X Premium+ subscription or a qualifying Premium account. Second, an invitation from X. Third, for Premium members, the direct deposit condition. Free accounts get nothing yet. People outside the US stay locked out too. Invitation control lets X manage how many users flood in during the first phase, while Cross River handles deposits, payments, and compliance.

My read on the 6% hook

Here is my read. The 6% is a customer acquisition hook, and a sharp one. It pulls attention and gets people talking about Elon Musk’s X Money as a bank rival. But the number you see is not the number you keep. Premium+ users pay the most for direct access. Those on regular Premium pay less and work for it. Whether X holds this rate once the crowd arrives is the real question, and I would not bet on 6% lasting forever.

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  • Formula 1

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix tickets are already gone, and Formula 1 says the season finale will run on schedule despite unrest across the Middle East. Stefano Domenicali, the sport’s President and CEO, told reporters the race stays on the calendar. A final decision, he added, comes by the middle of September.

What Domenicali confirmed

He said: “For us today, the races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi are confirmed. By the way, they are already sold out. That is an incredible sign of how much the sport is bigger than the problem that our world is living.”

Speaking after the Hungarian Grand Prix, with the season now in its one-month break, Domenicali said Formula 1 stays in contact with other championships about the end of the year. The plan is simple. Take the maximum time, watch how the situation develops, then decide at the right moment. That call will not come before mid-September.

For now, the races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi are confirmed. Abu Dhabi is set for 3-6 December, with the main race on Sunday, 6th of December 2026. Both have sold out. Domenicali called that a sign of how the sport has grown bigger than the trouble the world faces right now. Demand tells its own story. Fans searching for Abu Dhabi Grand Prix ticket prices found nothing left to buy.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix tickets question

Yas Marina Circuit has closed the F1 season almost every year since 2009. The track runs a twilight race that starts in daylight and finishes under floodlights. That finale slot is exactly what the September decision puts in question.

If tensions do not ease the way Formula 1 expects before mid-September, the plan changes. Domenicali was clear on the backup. The end of the season would move to Europe instead. Such a shift would reshape the closing weeks of the F1 calendar and pull the traditional finale away from Yas Marina Circuit.

Worth knowing if you hold a seat for the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: a sold-out race gives the event weight, but the September check still decides where the year ends. So the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix tickets you already hold come with a date the sport has yet to lock fully.

Bahrain race finds a new home

One race has already moved. The Bahrain Grand Prix, cancelled after unrest in the region, will now run at the Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia from October 2 to 4. It slots between the Azerbaijan and Singapore rounds.

Bahrain’s race was meant to be the fourth stop of the year, set for April 10 to 12 at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir. That plan fell through, and Formula 1 also dropped the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Jeddah the week after.

Domenicali thanked the Kingdom of Bahrain and Malaysia for making the switch work. He framed it as cooperation and as thinking wider than others might. Malaysia brings back a track that carried the championship in years past.

What it means for the F1 season finale

For fans, the picture is clear enough. The F1 season finale in Abu Dhabi is confirmed and sold out, and so is Qatar. Yet the mid-September call could still send the year’s final rounds to Europe. Anyone holding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix tickets should watch that date. Your seat stays valid for the day printed on it, but that day is not yet fully fixed. Formula 1 says it will decide when the time is right, and not a moment sooner.

  • Mohamed Salah

Besiktas’ offer for Mohamed Salah now rests on a single decision, with the Istanbul club setting a 24-hour window for the Egyptian forward to reply. The proposal runs across two seasons and reflects a level of spending rarely seen in the Turkish Super Lig. According to a report carried by beIN Sports, the club put forward a guaranteed annual salary of €15 million, along with performance bonuses of around €4 million. The agreement is also said to include clauses covering image rights. These figures come from Turkish media, and neither side has confirmed them in public.

What do the numbers show?

If every incentive triggers, Salah’s yearly income could climb to between €19 million and €20 million. Across the full term, that would take the total Mohamed Salah Besiktas contract commitment past €40 million. Reports describe the guaranteed figure as a net €15 million, a request Salah’s side raised early in the talks. The Salah salary on the table would place him among the highest earners in the league by a wide margin. Besiktas appears ready to absorb that cost to bring in a forward of his standing.

The Mohamed Salah Liverpool departure earlier in the summer sent one of the game’s most productive forwards onto the open market. His nine-year spell at Anfield brought more than 250 goals and a full set of domestic and European honors. That record explains the interest that followed his exit. Salah’s free agent status removed any transfer fee from the picture, which widened the field of possible destinations and shaped the terms now under review.

Rival interest in the background

Before the Turkish talks advanced, Salah drew interest from the Saudi Pro League and from clubs in Major League Soccer, according to widely reported accounts. Those options let the 34-year-old weigh location, level of competition, and long-term plans against the Istanbul proposal. For now, reports place Besiktas as the most concrete of the suitors. Besiktas’ offer for Mohamed Salah reaches a deadline.

After the financial package landed, attention shifted to Salah and his agent, Ramy Abbas, as Besiktas waited for a final answer. Journalist Sercan Dikme reported the two sides had moved forward on several points before the club asked for a clear response within 24 hours. Club president Serdal Adali framed the proposal as the club’s final offer and said Besiktas weighed each requested change against its own interests. Besiktas’ offer for Mohamed Salah carries a firm timeline, and Adali told Turkish media the decision now sits with the player. That deadline points to Monday evening.

What the Besiktas transfer means

For a club measuring itself against Galatasaray and Fenerbahce, adding Salah would signal clear intent. The latest Besiktas transfer news suggests the gap between the two sides narrowed through repeated rounds of talks. Besiktas has worked to build a stronger front line, and a forward with Salah’s output would change the club’s attacking shape. Whether Besiktas’ offer for Mohamed Salah closes will depend on how the forward reads the choice in front of him. A response is expected soon.

  • Tourism

Dubai is the most photographed city in the world, according to a new ranking of how often destinations appear on social media and in search results.

The study comes from Players Time, which built a scoring system it calls an Instagrammability Score. It combines hashtag counts on Instagram and TikTok with monthly Google search volume, then scales the result from 0 to 100.

Dubai scored a perfect 100. The city has been tagged 147 million times on Instagram and more than 43 million times on TikTok. It draws 3.43 million Google searches a month.

The Burj Khalifa took first place in the separate landmarks ranking. The tower has 10.1 million tagged posts and 1.1 million monthly searches. That puts it well ahead of the Grand Canyon at 696,000 searches and the Eiffel Tower at 662,000.

That result is worth sitting with. The Burj Khalifa opened in 2010. It is now photographed and searched more than monuments that have been standing for centuries. The Eiffel Tower came second with a score of 73.22. The Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu both landed in the top group, with search volumes between roughly 854,000 and 928,000 a month.

Europe holds 8 of the top 20 landmark places. The Sagrada Familia and the Colosseum sit in that group, with monthly searches running from about 313,000 to 737,000.

Some places are ranked for the experience, not the building

A few entries in the landmarks list are not really buildings at all.

Shibuya Scramble Crossing in Tokyo generated more than 6.57 million posts. Up to 3,000 people cross at once, and most of the photos are taken from inside the crowd rather than from a viewing point. Times Square in New York works the same way, with 5.82 million posts.

The oddest entry is the DUMBO viewpoint near the Brooklyn Bridge, which has passed 4 million Instagram posts on its own. Search demand for it is modest. People are not planning trips there. They walk past, take the photo, and the number keeps climbing.

London posts more, Barcelona searches more

Among cities, London and Paris follow Dubai. London recorded the highest raw hashtag volume in the study at 192.2 million posts. New York City reached 165.6 million and Istanbul 153.7 million.

Barcelona is the outlier. The city recorded 97 million tagged posts and 23 million monthly Google searches, which is close to seven times Dubai’s search volume.

That figure deserves a caveat the study does not offer. “Barcelona” is also the name of one of the most followed football clubs on the planet. A raw keyword count cannot tell a fan looking for match results apart from a traveller looking for a hotel. The same problem may explain why San Diego, Santiago and Kochi appear in a ranking of visual destinations despite far lower travel profiles.

Players Time has not published the weighting behind its score, so the gap between hashtag volume and search demand is difficult to check independently. Hashtag counts are also self-reported by the platforms and change constantly.

The Dubai finding survives those questions better than most. The city leads on both measures at once, and it does so against capitals that have had a hundred years’ head start on accumulating images. The Burj Khalifa did the same thing at landmark level in sixteen years.

  • Emirates

The latest Emirates Economy Class upgrade tackles a problem every long-haul traveller knows: falling asleep upright and waking with a sore neck. The company has announced that it has fitted a new headrest, called U-Dream, onto Economy seats. It supports your head and neck during sleep, and Emirates says you can leave the travel pillow at home.

What the U-Dream headrest does

The U-Dream headrest is a multi-way adjustable design. Padded leather side wings fold inward to cradle your head and neck. That keeps your head from dropping forward or tipping to the side while you sleep. It also moves up and down and tilts, so it lines up with passengers of different heights and body types.

The headrest is part of the Safran Seats Z400 Economy seat. It has been independently tested and certified to meet the safety standards of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Emirates says it is the first airline in the world to fit this technology at scale, bringing a level of support usually found in premium cabins.

Why this Emirates Economy Class upgrade matters for sleep

Standard Economy seats give little side support for the head. Many people pack a neck pillow to cope. This Emirates Economy Class upgrade announced by the company builds that support into the seat itself.

Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline, said:

‘Emirates never rests on its laurels when it comes to customer experience, and we have found a way to significantly improve the comfort for Economy Class passengers, especially those travelling long-haul. The U-Dream changes the game if the person wants to sleep – by supporting the neck in full. No more neck pillows needed. It’s another innovation that shows our commitment to customers and cements our Economy Class as the best.’

The leather surface wipes clean and is sanitised after every flight. Emirates says the headrest is easy to adjust, and cabin crew is trained to help passengers who need a hand.

Where and when you can use it

The U-Dream headrest already flies on three A350 aircraft. Emirates plans to fit every A350 in its fleet by the end of the year. The headrest will also come pre-installed on all 270 Boeing 777X jets the airline has on order.

From 2027, installation begins on retrofitted A380s and Boeing 777s. Over time, the feature reaches much of the long-haul fleet.

The move fits a wider pattern. This Emirates Economy Class upgrade lands during the airline’s multibillion-dollar fleet refurbishment, which has already refreshed cabins across its widebody aircraft. Premium cabins usually get the headlines, so a change aimed squarely at Economy passengers stands out.

For frequent flyers, the practical takeaway is simple. Before you book, check which aircraft runs your route. The seat you get may depend on whether that jet has been fitted yet.

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