Creative Dialog developed the placemaking strategy and visitor experience programme for one of the Middle East's largest leisure and entertainment destinations.

Working with Miral on a long-term engagement, the team translated extensive site, demographic and behavioural research into the Island First — Attraction Second strategy and the Yas Island Vision 2030 Placemaking Program — reframing the 25-square-kilometre destination as a unified island rather than a constellation of disparate attractions.

Expertise: Placemaking Strategy, Destination Visioning & Positioning + Visitor Experience
Sectors: Masterplan, Theme Parks & Entertainment, Public Realm, Tourism
Location: Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Objective

Yas Island is Abu Dhabi's premier leisure and entertainment destination — a 25-square-kilometre footprint and a multi-faceted destination offer that includes hospitality, retail, sports, year-round events, and a stellar portfolio of iconic attractions including Ferrari World, Warner Bros. World, SeaWorld and the Yas Marina F1 Circuit. After careful consideration, Miral appointed Creative Dialog as part of an extensive and long-term engagement to develop a complete placemaking approach for the destination's public realm — with the clear mandate of providing an enhanced visitor experience.

The challenge revealed itself early. Despite the calibre of its attractions, Yas Island as a whole was functioning as a collection of separate destinations. The brief became clear: how can we reimagine Yas Island's future beyond being a collection of disparate fast-fun attractions primarily accessed by private vehicle?

Our Approach

Creative Dialog approached the brief as both a strategic re-positioning and an operational deep dive — deploying the firm's full strategic advisory toolkit to understand the island's operational complexities, governance challenges and untapped potential. The goal was a holistic vision that positioned Yas Island as a unified island destination rather than as a series of fast-fun attractions to be consumed point-to-point.

_We conducted extensive site audits and stakeholder engagement workshops to understand the island's operational complexities, alongside client-side feedback that revealed the extent of the destination's untapped potential.

_We undertook extensive demographic and visitor research, interviews and behavioural mapping to understand how 34 million annual visitors from over 100 countries navigate and experience the destination.

_We surfaced two critical insights — that visitation was almost entirely point-to-point and car-based, and that visitor perception of Yas Island was effectively locked onto F1 and Ferrari World, leaving vast parts of the island unvisited and even unknown.

_We developed the Island First — Attraction Second strategy as the foundation of what became the Yas Island Vision 2030 Placemaking Program — repositioning the destination from car-based attraction-hopping toward exploration-based active lifestyle and cultural engagement.

_We designed a seamless mobility network — the Yas Leisure Trail — integrating water taxis, sky lifts, personal mobility, running, walking and cycling trails, and ultra-light rail mobility pods to deliver visitors and residents new ways to explore the island from micro to macro.

_We applied a pedestrian-first philosophy to the strategic reconfiguration of vehicle-dominant spaces, broadening the destination offer through public art, cultural events, and the opening up of green spaces and transport routes.

_We translated the strategy into a holistic island-wide masterplan that positioned every element of the public realm as reinforcement of the unified island experience — from elevated viewpoints and water connections through to retail, residential and hospitality precincts.

The Outcome

The completed placemaking programme delivers a unified vision for one of the GCC's most ambitious leisure destinations — repositioning Yas Island from a constellation of fast-fun attractions to a single, explorable island where every element reinforces the distinctive experience of island living. From the water's edge to the Yas Leisure Trail, the work reframes how 34 million visitors a year encounter the destination, and what they remember of it.

What We Delivered

Placemaking & Visitor Experience Strategy

Stakeholder Engagement Programme

Site Audits & Operational Diagnostics

Demographic, Visitor & Behavioural Research

Island First — Attraction Second Strategy

Yas Island Vision 2030 Placemaking Program

Yas Leisure Trail Multi-Modal Mobility Network

Pedestrian-First Public Realm Strategy

Cultural Activation & Public Art Programme

Island-Wide Masterplan & Precinct Reimagining