A Note from the Editors

Wishing you all an early Ramadan Kareem—a month that reminds us of the power of community, reflection, and shared experiences. 🌙✨

Just as Ramadan brings people together in meaningful ways, The Dyorama is always exploring how brands and spaces foster connection and create lasting impact. In that spirit, this month, we’ll be spotlighting standout Ramadan experiences across the region, from immersive iftars to thoughtfully curated retreats.

We’re also deepening our focus on the intersection of wellness and hospitality, exploring how spaces and experiences support personal well-being—an especially fitting theme for a time centered on mindfulness, renewal, and balance. We hope you enjoy it. 

– Nureen

P.S. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts—your input fuels what we create. If you like this week’s edition, share with someone who’d appreciate exploring the dynamic intersection of hospitality, design and business in the MENA region.

What you’ll find in this week’s edition: Visual Vignette // This Week’s Curation // Q&A Interview Profile // Global Spotlight // On Our Radar

Visual Vignette

In a world of ornate arches and hidden courtyards, a lone guardian sits at the threshold of a traditional Moroccan doorway, where symmetry meets soul. Credit: @moroccan.minimalism, Instagram.

This Week’s Curation

Fresh Takes: The Concepts and Trends to Watch This Week

☕ The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops has unveiled its annual ranking, spotlighting 100 cafés across the globe that excel in specialty coffee, ambiance, and community impact. From Tokyo to Mexico City, these cafés offer more than just great brews—they serve as cultural hubs that define their cities. The selection criteria focus on coffee quality, unique atmosphere, sustainability, and local engagement, ensuring each spot delivers an exceptional experience.

🌀 Our Take: We were genuinely thrilled to see One Life in Dubai earn a well-deserved spot on the list—especially following our recent conversation with Bass Ackermann. But beyond that, only one other MENA café made the cut, in Marrakech—an unexpected omission for a region that literally gave the world coffee. While the market is undeniably saturated—UAE’s coffee sector alone is forecasted to grow by 8.4% annually through 2029—perhaps the challenge isn’t quantity but quality benchmarking. So what’s missing? Are too many of our cafés prioritizing sterility over soul, as Mokhtar Alkhanshali recently suggested? Have we diluted our coffee culture with an excess of imported chains, or is the experience simply too transactional? And perhaps, beyond the influx of new cafés, the real gap lies in adopting global coffee grading systems, which remain widely overlooked in the region. Whatever the reason, it’s worth asking why more of our region’s cafés aren’t receiving global recognition—and what needs to change.

🔬 teamLab Phenomena, a new immersive art experience, is set to open in April at Saadiyat Cultural District in Abu Dhabi, featuring dynamic digital artworks that evolve with their environment. Created by the renowned international art collective teamLab, the attraction will offer an ever-changing, interactive experience that blends technology, nature, and human perception.

🌀 Our Take: In case you were wondering: yes, digital immersive experiences are big business, and Abu Dhabi knows it. teamLab’s Tokyo exhibition pulled 2.3 million visitors in its first year, outpacing some of the world’s top museums. With 70% of its guests being international. This is a tourism engine, not an art installation. Abu Dhabi is clearly betting big on the experience economy, where culture isn’t about quiet observation, it’s about full-on participation. Meanwhile, some regions cough Europe cough are still debating whether digital art is “real,” while the Gulf is turning it into a billion-dollar draw. Could the region become the global leader in next-gen cultural experiences? With experiential spaces driving up to 20% more foot traffic, Abu Dhabi is making one thing clear: the future of museums isn’t just what you see, it’s what you experience.

🎮  Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), is reportedly in advanced discussions to acquire the gaming division of Niantic, the creators of Pokémon Go, for approximately $3.5 billion. This potential acquisition would encompass Niantic's flagship title, Pokémon Go, along with its other mobile gaming assets, while Niantic would retain its augmented reality and mixed reality technology platforms, such as Lightship. This move aligns with Savvy Games Group's strategic objective to expand its global gaming portfolio, following its previous acquisition of Scopely for around $5 billion in 2023.

🌀 Our Take: Saudi Arabia isn’t joking around trying to catch ’em all. It's capturing the future of immersive tourism. Pokémon Go demonstrated the power of augmented reality by turning city streets into interactive playgrounds, amassing over 500 million downloads in its first year and generating $8 billion in lifetime revenue. Now, envision that engagement model applied to Saudi's ambitious projects like NEOM or Riyadh Season—transforming these destinations into gamified experiences that attract and engage visitors on a massive scale. The global location-based entertainment market is projected to reach $25.90 billion by 2030, growing at a 28.5% CAGR. By acquiring Niantic's gaming division, Saudi Arabia positions itself at the forefront of this booming industry, leveraging proven AR-driven engagement strategies to redefine tourism and urban experiences.

🧭 Wego and the Jordan Tourism Board have partnered to promote Jordan’s top destinations—including Petra, Wadi Rum, and hidden gems—through targeted digital campaigns and immersive storytelling. Their collaboration includes leveraging Wego’s travel platform, data-driven marketing, and engaging content to attract global travelers and showcase Jordan’s rich history, adventure experiences, and cultural heritage. 

🌀 Our Take: In a world where AI curates travel itineraries in seconds, do Online Travel Agencies (OTAs)  still hold the same power? Jordan’s tourism board teaming up with Wego makes sense today, but what happens when travelers stop browsing OTAs and start relying on AI agents to plan everything for them? Tourism boards are outsourcing discovery when they should be owning the conversation. Instead of hoping to be found on an OTA, why not invest in direct engagement like socials, and immersive storytelling? With AI reshaping how travelers explore, destinations that rely on third-party platforms risk being just another search result, if they’re found at all.

🏗️  Emirati businessman Mohamed Alabbar has signed a multi-billion dollar agreement with the Egyptian government to transform Downtown Cairo, leveraging his expertise in large-scale urban developments. The project, led by Emaar Properties, will focus on restoring historic buildings, introducing world-class infrastructure, and reimagining the district as a global business and lifestyle hub—with Alabbar promising “something that has never been seen anywhere in the world.”

🌀 Our Take: Cairo isn’t Dubai, and trying to copy-paste the model risks losing what makes it irreplaceable. Alabbar’s track record proves he can build at scale, but can he build with history rather than over it? The promise of turning Downtown into a world-class hub sounds visionary, until you factor in the 170 million tourists projection (for reference, France had 100 million last year). Numbers like these feel less like strategy and more like justifying a real estate gold rush. Cairo needs revitalization, not a glossy reinvention that erases its urban DNA. We’ve seen how rapid, investor-first development can price out locals, gut cultural districts, and turn living cities into curated backdrops. The real question isn’t whether Downtown Cairo can be transformed, it’s whether the people who built its soul will still have a place in it when the dust settles.

Q&A Interview Profile

MetaMinds’ Revolutionary Metaverse Experience in MENA: Q&A with Sandra Helou

Sandra Helou has long believed that the future of digital experiences isn’t just about technology—it’s about engagement. In this interview, the MetaMinds CEO sits down with The Dyorama to discuss how Web3, VR, and AI are transforming the way brands connect with consumers, the knowledge gap holding back MENA’s experience economy, and why the metaverse is more than just a buzzword. She unpacks the shift from product-led to community-led brand experiences, the role of storytelling in digital spaces, and how businesses can harness immersive technology to stay ahead. Interview edited by Omar Ramy, Staff Writer.

Global Spotlight

🥐 Librae Bakery, located in Manhattan's Cooper Square, is the first and only Bahrain-owned bakery in the U.S., founded by Dona Murad and her husband. The bakery embodies a fusion of Bahraini hospitality, Copenhagen baking techniques, and New York's dynamic energy. Signature offerings include the lumee babka, combining black lime—a staple in Bahraini cuisine—with lemon curd, and the za'atar and labneh morning bun, reflecting Middle Eastern flavors. Murad's vision is to create a "third-culture bakery" that bridges her Middle Eastern heritage with Western culinary traditions, offering a unique gastronomic experience.

On Our Radar

📌 Dubai’s Downtown Design is making its debut in Riyadh’s JAX District this May, bringing a curated showcase of contemporary design, architecture, and craftsmanship to Saudi Arabia’s creative hub.

📌 Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser has inaugurated the Al-Mujadilah Center and Mosque for Women in Doha, a pioneering space designed exclusively for women. Located within Education City, this center serves as both a place of worship and a forum for learning, aiming to empower Muslim women through religious and intellectual engagement.

📌 Launched in October 2024, the Horizon of Khufu virtual reality experience offers New Yorkers an immersive journey through the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Giza Plateau.

📌 New research from STR, commissioned by Arabian Travel Market (ATM), highlights strong hospitality growth across the GCC in 2024, driven by government initiatives like Saudi Vision 2030 and We the UAE 2031, with luxury hospitality emerging as a key driver and a major focus at ATM 2025.

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