Meet The Man Giving A Magic Touch To The Middle East’s Theme Park Industry

The man behind some of the Middle East’s top water park attractions is bringing his expertise to the region’s new theme park body.

MSM

Few markets have experienced such rapid growth in the theme park industry as the Middle East. In just the past decade it has opened new parks containing attractions themed to many of the biggest brands in entertainment including Warner Bros., DC Comics, SeaWorld, Marvel Comics and Dreamworks. Harry Potter and Disney attractions are set to join them while Universal is rumoured to be on the way too. Even Orlando can’t hold a candle to that line up and it takes more than the wave of a magic wand to pull it off.

Despite the Middle East being gripped by war since the end of February there is no evidence that the curtain has come down on any of the planned projects. In fact, as this report explained, the Warner Bros. World park on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island recently unexpectedly announced that it will open a new DC-themed ride just next month. There is good reason for this dedication.

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and, like many of the other countries in the region, its vast fortune was built on fossil fuels. As its reserves began to dwindle it embarked on a groundbreaking plan to diversify its economy by 2030.

Known as Vision 2030, profits from gas and oil have been pumped into the development of a leisure infrastructure to tempt tourists and boost the level of business to local companies. Theme parks are at the vanguard of this strategy as they attract tourists from afar and the colossal complexes have the capacity to welcome millions of people. The more people who visit, the greater the local spending and the more diverse Abu Dhabi’s economy becomes.

Nearby Dubai also has a similar Vision 2030 diversification plan as do other local nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia which last year opened a Six Flags park with the world’s tallest and fastest roller coaster. Countries in the Middle East don’t build record-breaking theme parks so that they can boast. They aim to be the leaders in their field in order to attract more tourists and make their economies more stable in the long run. It is a government-funded theme park model and it has a magic touch.

The Middle East’s most popular parks are clustered on Yas Island and Warner Bros. World leads the way. As this report in Dubai’s Khaleej Times newspaper revealed, in 2023 Warner Bros. World became the first park in the Middle East to appear on the Global Attractions Attendance report from the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). Yas Island didn’t rest on its laurels.

The high caliber of its parks helped to drive more than 38 million visits to the destination and this upward trend continued in 2025 as Yas Island had a record-breaking summer with a 15% year-on-year increase in visits and an average occupancy rate of 85% in its hotels. Even the trouble in the region this year couldn’t stop its surge.

As this author reported, at the height of the conflict, the parks on Yas Island remained packed with crowds of parents and children. Indeed, they were so busy that when the Yas Waterworld park launched a new slide tower, it reached capacity by early afternoon on opening day.

Mohamed Al Zaabi, the trailblazing chief executive of Yas Island’s developer Miral has followed a magic formula to keep guests streaming through the turnstiles. At the heart of his strategy is his insistence that each of its parks is a step up from its predecessors. As Al Zaabi explained to me, the “next experience will be better than the previous one. That’s what we do always at Miral. We keep pushing the bar.”

This approach has made Miral the world’s leading theme park developer alongside Disney and Universal. It isn’t thanks to sorcery but ingenuity and hard work.

Building top tier theme parks and lands requires as many as 10,000 workers and hundreds of suppliers covering everything from roller coaster manufacturers and scenery fabricators right down to costume vendors and paint distributors. The Middle East’s economy will get a big boost from the construction process alone given how many new attractions are in the pipeline. Of course, the greater the level of activity across the region, the greater the need for a robust trade body.

Testimony to this, in February the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) teamed up with the Middle East and North Africa Leisure and Attractions Council (MENALAC) to launch the IAAPA Middle East North Africa (MENA) office. This combines two titans of the industry. As I have reported, IAAPA is recognized worldwide as the standard bearer of the attractions sector while MENALAC has made a name for itself in the Middle East for its industry advocacy.

A theme park standard for the Middle East

Founded in 2016, MENALAC has cast a powerful spell by championing the region’s interests, elevating industry standards and fostering collaboration among all key stakeholder categories. Together with IAAPA it will provide localized education, advocacy, research, resources and expanded networking opportunities while connecting professionals in the region to IAAPA’s global community. In short, the new office combines MENALAC’s regional expertise with IAAPA’s global scale and creates a structure which promotes information sharing.

The partnership has led to the creation of local committees covering safety, education, manufacturers and suppliers along with an IAAPA MENA regional advisory board composed of IAAPA and MENALAC members representing the region’s diverse attractions community. The board will guide priorities and strategy while its chair will also have a regular seat on IAAPA’s global board of directors to ensure that the regional body is directly plugged into the wider organization.

Finding someone to drive such a diverse group of stakeholders was far from a walk in park. IAAPA MENA’s members cover everything from a small Family Entertainment Center (FEC) and specialist suppliers to some of the world’s most well-known theme parks, all operating in a rapidly-expanding market. Drawing these different interests in the same direction requires tremendous experience of the region and its customs as well as immense business acumen and knowledge of the attractions industry.

The man for the job is Mike Rigby, an industry veteran who spent nearly 13 years working for WhiteWater, the world’s largest designer and manufacturer of water parks. This former job gives him invaluable experience of what operators are looking for from their trade body but that’s just the start.

Long before the world’s most well-known entertainment brands decided that they couldn’t ignore the Middle East, its attractions scene was dominated by water parks. By commissioning cutting-edge slides, operators of water parks can make waves internationally without the need to sign up well-known Intellectual Property. This driving force led to the Middle East breaking record after record with its water parks including having the world’s biggest, the mighty Aquaventure at Atlantis The Palm in Dubai.

Thanks to the blistering hot weather in the region, its water parks quickly became incredibly popular so their operators had to add even more record-breaking slides and make their theming even more escapist to stand out from each other. It led to the development of Meryal waterpark in Qatar, which has the world’s tallest water slide, and the elaborate Aquarabia which opened in April and is home to the world’s tallest and longest water coaster.

The popularity and high-caliber of these parks convinced Hollywood studios to plant their flags in the region and that is thanks largely to WhiteWater. The Canadian company was behind all of the Middle East’s landmark parks, including Aquaventure, Meryal, Aquarabia and the expansion to Yas Waterworld which is probably the most exquisitely-themed water park in the world as this report in Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper explained.

Thanks to Rigby, these incredibly complex projects stayed on course ensuring that the Middle East made a splash in the international attractions arena. He is now applying his talent to attractions on land as well as water in his new role as IAAPA MENA’s vice president and executive director. It’s a whole new world but as he explains, the objective is still for the region to remain on the crest of the wave.

An unexpected career path

It is a particularly significant achievement as Rigby never intended to work in the industry. “It’s fair to say that I managed to get into the attractions industry by coincidence and accident more than anything,” he says. “At the time, I was living in Barcelona, Spain, working in television and telecoms, when I one day saw an advertisement on LinkedIn saying, ‘do you want to travel the world to sell water parks?’ Who could say no to that?”

Rigby sent his résumé off to WhiteWater, not expecting a response as he had no experience in the industry. However, a couple of months later, WhiteWater reached out. After a series of interviews, he was on holiday in Mexico when he got a call asking him to come to Vancouver to meet the team and the owners.

“As I was in Mexico, I said, sure, I can come tomorrow if need be,” he explains. “So 48 hours later, I was in Vancouver with the owners of WhiteWater and at the end of that, I had an offer on the table saying ‘do you want to come and join WhiteWater as VP of Europe, Middle East, Africa, Russia and India for the park attractions division’, which, at the time was called Prime Play.”

Rigby accepted and a few months later, flew to Orlando for his first day on the job, which was coincidentally at the IAAPA Orlando trade show in 2013. “At this point, I knew very little about WhiteWater, I knew very little about the industry and it was only at the opening reception that I started to speak to people to try and understand a little bit more about this industry and a little bit more about WhiteWater,” he says.

He adds that “it was nice to then understand that I joined one of the bigger players in the industry, and since then, it has just been a series of learning and growth. I was fortunate to work in the Prime Play division at WhiteWater where I worked on some of the projects at Dubai Parks and Resorts.”

Two years later, WhiteWater owner Geoff Chutter suggested to him that he might want to move to Dubai. He explains “we had a gentleman here, Graham Lockie, who’d been extremely successful, and was looking to retire. They were looking at the transition plan so they suggested I could come to the Middle East to open our Dubai office and really grow our presence here. I had the fortune of looking after the water park division and everything else for WhiteWater for the Middle East and Africa. I had the fortune of working on some of the most exciting projects in this region, be that Meryal in Qatar, which has an 85 meter tall slide tower, or Aquarabia, that’s recently opened, ADRENA at the Red Sea, Grand Hyatt, Jungle Bay, Legoland Waterpark, Salwa, Laguna and so many more.”

After 12 years at WhiteWater he came across the opportunity to head up the MENA region of IAAPA. “Having been involved with the regional association, MENALAC, and the Themed Entertainment Association for the EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa] region, as well as IAAPA, this seemed a natural fit,” he says.

A developing market

It was the right time for IAAPA to open the regional office. “The MENA leisure region is not as new as people think,” Rigby says. “There are projects here that are now coming up to 25, 30 years old, such as Wild Wadi [waterpark in Dubai], which was opened in the late 1990s. However, in the last 10 to 15 years, there has certainly been exponential growth in the region as the governments are looking to diversify from traditional revenue streams, really identifying leisure and tourism as a way to provide them with long-term financial stability.”

IAAPA had been present in the region for some time under its EMEA umbrella, but it was time to recognise it as a distinct market. “We have seen exponential growth in the UAE, with the efforts of Dubai Holding and Dubai Parks, with IMG, with Atlantis, with all the fantastic projects that Miral are doing,” Rigby says. “Then even more recently in Saudi Arabia, where the PIF [Public Investment Fund] has really identified leisure as part of their Vision 2030 strategy. Not to mention tourism growing across the region. North Africa has become a destination. Turkey – Antalya has more than 15 million people per year and that’s centered around mixed-use entertainment. And then even the rest of the Middle East, where leisure has become an increasing factor in driving tourism.”

As a result of this growth, he says that “IAAPA has been keeping an eye on this region and listening to the members and seeing what the members want and it was members who really wanted to have more exposure in this region and have more support. There was already the regional association MENALAC, the Middle East North African Leisure Attractions Council, and it was finally agreed that MENALAC and IAAPA would combine to form this new IAAPA MENA chapter.”

Local businesses involved in the industry will now have their own representation. “This will now grow on the work that’s already been done and take it to the next step for the MENA region,” Rigby says. “The IAAPA MENA office will look to support our members to drive these initiatives and provide the additional support that they need to help this industry thrive.”

None of this could be achieved without close integration with IAAPA’s office in the US. Rigby says that “the relationship between IAAPA MENA and IAAPA US ensures seamless collaboration combining global knowledge with regional expertise. A lot of our functions are based here in the region, and we bring that regional perspective, that regional know-how. However, we cannot overlook the expertise and the experience from our head office so we do have a lot of global functions that will provide us guidance, or provide us with their expertise, and then we’re looking to add a local twist to that. So it really is working hand in hand.”

There is daily communication between the MENA office and IAAPA’s other outlets around the world. “However, no two markets are the same and our job is to ensure we are providing that local support,” Rigby says. “We’re providing that local differentiation and we’re really here for our members to understand their needs and to be able to react to those needs.”

Transforming the region

Rigby brings the perspective of someone who has been a long-time customer. “Having been involved with IAAPA for over a decade from a manufacturer and supplier perspective, now that I sit the other side of the table, my role is to drive the value and support we provide the members,” he says. “The objectives and my vision is endless.”

He has three main goals in his new role. “I would say we want to be the leading resource for the attractions industry, and particularly our members; we want to bring the global industry together in every region of the world, in particular for me, this would be focusing on the MENA region; and we really want to represent all parts of the industry, we want to ensure we look after all stakeholders, all territories and everything that is encapsulated within the attractions world,” he says.

He adds that “the attractions industry goes far beyond your traditional venue. It really looks at every way we spend our time, how we spend our time with our families, how we get out of the house, how we enjoy ourselves. So I really want to ensure we are speaking to a broader audience and across a broad territory as well.”

A vision for the future

Rigby believes that Vision 2030 “has undoubtedly impacted the leisure and attractions industry in the MENA region in a positive manner. There has been huge investment and huge focus, and this has brought opportunities for everyone. When I look at Saudi Arabia, this year alone both Six Flags Qiddiya and Aquarabia parks have opened, both of which are phenomenal developments that will impress people on a global scale. I’ve already seen how so many people want to come to this region to see these developments. There is ADRENA at the Red Sea. Saudi Entertainment Ventures are getting prepared to open multiple venues and they will change the landscape across the country.”

He adds that there is also significant business generated by players that were already in Saudi Arabia before Vision 2030, such as BAAN Holding and Al Othaim which have multiple sites across the country that drive leisure and entertainment for the local market.

He explains that “Vision 2030 certainly has created a focus on the MENA region but this builds across the work that’s already been done. When I look at other countries across the GCC, many of them also have their own vision plans and their focus is on leisure and entertainment. You see what has been done in Qatar – some phenomenal parks have opened. Oman is currently looking at new projects. Then North Africa, it continues to boom. Turkey, Antalya, really has become a tourist hotspot where you see dozens of fantastic venues, and then we simply cannot forget the UAE. The UAE really is one of the leading leisure destinations in the world right now.”

He explains that “all of these visions combine together to really put a focus on this part of the world and ensure that global audiences know that the MENA region is a hotspot for leisure. And I think that will benefit everyone. Yes, at times some of these entities compete but they are also all working together to grow the pie. As a whole, I continue to imagine that this region will thrive and I expect to see continued growth.

Opportunities from adversity

Rigby admits that the Iran War has created some challenges for the region. “Unfortunately, we cannot overlook that there’s macroeconomic and political factors that will always impact our industry,” he says. “When tourism is down, that does impact leisure and entertainment. Similarly, if there’s a downturn in the economy, disposable incomes are less. However, many of them are out of our control, so what we can focus on is areas and challenges that are within our hands.”

He has identified areas that need the most attention. “One of the main areas that we all need to work on is how we’re going to staff and resource so many fantastic projects that are opening on such a fast scale,” he says. “This is a maturing sector in a maturing market for the sector. Therefore, it’s not as though you can go down the street and find tens of thousands of people with the experience in theme parks, in water parks, in FECs, that can staff all these new exciting projects. Therefore, we do need to introduce new people into this industry. We do need to train them up, and that takes time.”

He says that this will take “a huge effort from IAAPA, but also many of our members, to ensure that there is a focus on bringing people into this industry, creating awareness, making people want to enter this industry so that staffing of these fantastic projects is to the level that they demand and should expect, because in the end we have some of the best destinations in the world and the service does play a huge part in the overall experience. So it’s up to us all to ensure that we’re relying on global expertise to train up the local staff to have that know-how to deliver a world-class experience.”

On the flip side, these challenges create great opportunities for the industry. “When I talk about opportunities, for me, they’re limitless,” he says. “Tourism is going to continue to grow. I think there is going to be more of a focus on leisure. People are not just happy with going to a mall with just shops. They don’t want to go to a hotel that maybe just has a swimming pool. People want more.”

He says that the market is changing as “we’re all looking how to enhance our experiences. We all value our free time more than ever. And we want to do things that create shared experiences, that create memories, and leisure and entertainment is going to play a huge part in that. It’s a sector that brings smiles to people’s faces. It improves people’s lives. It improves people’s moods. And that is only an opportunity for all of our members as this industry will continue to grow exponentially, in my opinion.”

A region of growth

“I do believe tourism will bounce back,” Rigby says. “I think tourism will continue to grow in the MENA region and as a result of that, it will become more and more of a family destination. As part of becoming a family destination, you will need more to do and that is where the attractions industry can play a huge part.”

He believes that while the region will still see occasional standalone projects, they will more frequently be part of a much larger mixed-use project, driven by real estate or retail.

One example he gives is the Surf Abu Dhabi attraction on Hudayriat Island. “You now see that the real estate is starting to follow,” he says. “It is the anchor that is creating a destination within the resort. You see the likes of Jungle Bay, Grand Hyatt, Land of Legends that are the anchors for the hotel performance. You see a growing trend right now of competitive socializing. This brings together activities and F&B. Topgolf is a great example of that, as is Brass Monkey. In Saudi Arabia, Saudi Entertainment Ventures have announced flow houses where there is surfing in their complexes.”

He says that there is a current trend where “people want to do more. People want to be active. We need to get away from people being at their screens and leisure and entertainment is something that helps achieve that. I know from myself having young children that I spend a lot of my weekends going to self-contained play centers and there’s always a demand for these and the demand is going to increase. We need more innovation. People are going to continue to try and outdo each other, do bigger, do better, to try and create those enhanced experiences. So as a whole, that is going to continue to see this industry grow and people want to do more.”

He sees theme parks as a way of generating human interactions. “Someone once said to me, there’s three areas of the world that really bring people together,” he says. “Sport, as you can sit next to some random person but you share that shared experience because you’re both supporting and cheering on that same team. Extremely relevant now the World Cup is happening. There’s concerts. If you go and see your favorite artist, you’re happy to enjoy that with the person next to you. You may not know them, you may come from a completely different part of the world, have completely different backgrounds, but you share that common interest in that artist on stage. And leisure and entertainment is no different.”

He explains that “I look at my son, within five minutes of going to a water park he’s playing with 10 other kids he’s never met before. And similarly, even myself, I’ve sat on a roller coaster and smiled at that person next to me at the end of the ride. So I really think leisure and entertainment does do so much helping society come together. It creates fun memories. It creates these shared experiences which enhance all of our lives.”

He says that because of this effect “the future is bright. People want that. We all work hard. We all spend too much time on our phones. We all watch television. We all spend time on social media. That doesn’t give you the same engagement and reward as these shared experiences which leisure and attractions can create.”

A proud achievement

Rigby brings a wealth of experience to his new role at IAAPA. “I can’t wait to help the industry as a whole. I can’t wait to give back. I like to think I’ve already played a tiny little piece in the development of the MENA attractions industry and I really now hope to give that platform for so many other people to do the same thing.

He says that during his time at WhiteWater he was “extremely fortunate to have worked on some incredible projects in the MENA region. Be that my first projects at Legoland Dubai or Motiongate, which I still look back on extremely fondly given that I knew nothing at the time and was able to help deliver them, to some of the more recent projects that are globally recognizable and will impact the global entertainment landscape.”

This included some of the world’s most significant theme park achievements. “You look at Qatar, that Icon Tower is something that I don’t think will ever be repeated in a water park setting,” he says. “80 plus meters, countless slides on a single tower and it is incredible. You look at it, you go up to the top of the tower and it is a phenomenal piece of architecture and engineering. It is incredible to think that idea came about and I get goosebumps every time I see it.”

It is not the only moment that stands out and he also cites Qiddiya as crowning glory. “I was on that project, on Aquarabia, since 2017,” he says. “[It’s incredible] to see that finally open, and to know that we played a role in shaping that entire project. And then ADRENA at the Red Sea. We brought surfing to Saudi Arabia. Who could have thought that we would have brought those endless surf pools to the Middle East? And then Yas Waterworld, which was one of my last projects – the expansion – and it’s great to see that.”

However, none of these standout achievements are his proudest moment working in the industry. “It was probably three to four months ago when I took my two-year-old to his first water park,” he says. “We went to Jungle Bay at the Westin Mina Seyahi [in Dubai]. I was there with my wife and we’d all enjoyed a slide. It was only the small kiddie slide time and time again, as my son had just hit the minimum height requirement to be allowed on that. There was a moment when he turned around to my wife and pointed, ‘Daddy’s water park’. That made me realize that it’s worthwhile.”

He adds that “we do it for so many other people. We don’t do it for ourselves. We’re doing it to create memories and to create these experiences. And the fact that I have now created something that my son is able to enjoy, that he can think of, and to see the smile on his face, that was enough for me.”

Now, at the helm of IAAPA, he has the opportunity to help create those kinds of proud moments for other people working in the industry across the region.

Additional reporting by Chris Sylt