Ras Al Khaimah Tourism joins forces with Emirates to reignite international tourism

Dubai: There is a particular confidence to Ras Al Khaimah right now.

The past six months could easily have forced a tourism destination into defensive mode. Instead, the emirate leaned into what it knew it could deliver — a short break close to home, backed by its mountains, beaches, outdoor experiences and the warmth of Emirati hospitality.

And, it found that the domestic market could do more than simply keep tourism ticking over.

After months during which the US-Iran conflict disrupted international travel, the emirate is turning its attention back to overseas visitors — and a new partnership with Emirates is designed to help bring them in.

Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority and Emirates have signed a memorandum of understanding to drive visitor arrivals into the emirate from selected markets across the airline's network.

RAKTDA CEO Phillipa Harrison signed for the destination. Adnan Kazim, Emirates' Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer, signed for the airline. And for RAK, the timing is the point.

The emirate has spent the past six months turned inward — successfully, as it turns out, but narrowly. The Emirates deal is the pivot outward.

Under the MOU, the two sides will explore joint marketing and advertising across RAK's target markets, along with trade and media familiarisation programmes and shared campaign costs.

RAKTDA will support those visits with curated ground experiences. Bespoke products and packages for Emirates customers are also on the table, sold directly through 'Dubai Experience' on the airline's website, with incentives for tour operators and the wider travel trade.

"As we expand our destination offering and cement Ras Al Khaimah's positioning globally, working with Emirates will help connect the destination with audiences across key international markets," Phillipa said.

Meanwhile, Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ Deputy President and Chief Commercial Officer said: “Emirates’ network reach of close to 140 destinations provides the scale required to reach new travellers and encourage them to expand their itinerary with the rich experiences Ras Al Khaimah has to offer."

He said, "As our home and hub, we remain committed to showcasing the UAE’s breadth of attractions and depth of experiences available for visitors.”

Speaking to Gulf News at the sidelines of ATM, Phillipa was candid about how the past six months unfolded. The timing may look daunting from the outside. She does not sound daunted.

Since taking the job last year, Harrison has had little time for a gentle introduction to the emirate's tourism machine. Yet there is little trace of that pressure in the way she talks about Ras Al Khaimah — measured, prepared and quietly optimistic about what comes next.

"I think if you work in travel and tourism, you have to be prepared for anything that comes your way," she said. "During periods like this, you really see what makes a destination tick, and see what's important."

The very first priority was people. "We had a lot of people stuck in the emirate, and we accommodated them for three days before they were able to get home," she said. "Number one's look after people. That was our guests, and then it was our staff."

Then came the market that was still open. "A lot of us have muscle memory from COVID," Phillipa said. "We know what we need to do. We know the playbook, so we dusted off the playbook, and off we went."

The RAK Moments campaign went deep rather than wide — targeting niche community interest groups rather than blanketing the domestic market. The mix shifted hard.

"We went from being 50 per cent domestic to 90 per cent domestic," Phillipa said.

Those months produced records. RAKTDA reported more than 670,000 visitors between January and June 2026, the emirate's strongest-ever first half. Domestic arrivals rose 47 per cent year-on-year. RAK Moments alone generated Dh104.4 million in room revenue from 224,000 room nights.

May 2026 was the single busiest month in the emirate's history. Then August beat it. "We had a record May in terms of actual arrivals, and then in August we just broke that May record," Phillipa said.

However, domestic visitors stay for less time. "We're not doing as well from a revenue point of view as we did last year, but we're really happy with where we are," she said.

Fixing that requires exactly what the Emirates deal is designed to deliver. "There's one way to do it. That's to get internationals back," Phillipa said. "Internationals stay for much longer, just by nature of the sort of trip that they do. The UAE is lots of little short breaks. The international is more a full holiday."

International recovery has already begun where conditions allowed. Travel advisories and air access were the two gates.

"As soon as those two things are lifted in a country, typically we see a surge of business coming back," Phillipa said. "It doesn't jump straight back to 100 per cent. We need to work on that."

Russia and the UK are returning. India has overshot. "We're actually getting more from India than we did previously, so that's great."

Where advisories remain, she is philosophical. "If there is a travel advisory in place, then there's not a lot you can do about that — that is what it is," she said. But the sequencing is mapped. "We know what we're going to do in each market. We know what day one looks like, what day two looks like, what day three looks like. We just don't know when day one, day two and day three is."

She was equally clear about the perception gap. "We also know the job we need to do in some markets where the perception is a little bit different to the reality."

Through all of it, cranes kept moving.

"I'm delighted to say that construction continued pretty much unhindered over the period," Phillipa said, calling it a vote of confidence in the long-term vision.

RAK has roughly 8,000 hotel rooms in the pipeline. The ambition, in Phillipa’s words: "Doubling hotels, tripling visitation."

Wynn Al Marjan Island will now arrive in September 2027, after the operator announced a six-month delay. Rotana Ras Al Khaimah – The Mangroves, aimed at meetings and events, opens next quarter in RAK City. Saij – A Mantis Collection Mountain Lodge in the fourth quarter of 2026: 70 villas on Jebel Jais, built around paddock-to-plate dining and nature immersion, and a deliberate departure from the beach-resort template.

Beyond that, a luxury queue. Nobu, Janu Al Marjan Island, The Unexpected, W Hotels, Fairmont and Four Seasons, all "delivered over the next three years."

Two properties used the quiet period to bring refurbishments forward — the Pullman, a wing of the InterContinental, and a Rixos property.

Infrastructure is moving in parallel. A VIP terminal at Ras Al Khaimah International Airport will handle private jets, which Phillipa tied to "the premiumisation of our destination."

New roads are also under construction, along with a bridge extending an existing route onto the island. Supply chain issues have pushed the terminal to next year. "It will happen," she said.

Phillipa is measured about the final quarter of 2026 and considerably less measured about what follows.

"It still feels geopolitically a little bit volatile, and until that's fully, fully resolved, we won't see a full recovery," she said. "We're cautiously optimistic about Q4, and then pretty optimistic about 2027."

Full recovery to previous arrival levels lands "sometime in 2027." Wynn does the rest. "With Wynn opening, that'll kind of supercharge our arrivals."

Meetings and events remain a strategic pillar, valued for filling midweek beds in a destination whose domestic business clusters at weekends. Phillipa’s pitch is practical. "Corporates love conferencing in Ras Al Khaimah because it's smaller. There's less delegate dispersal."

The events calendar holds: New Year's Eve, the RAK Half Marathon, an art festival. More winter programming is coming but unannounced.

RAKTDA is targeting more than 3.5 million annual visitors by 2030.

Asked what keeps her up at night, Phillipa declined the premise entirely. "I've been so impressed with the way the UAE has moved through the last six months," she said. "If anything, it's made me realise how strong we are, and how resilient we are."