Etihad isn't just dipping its toes in with this: Daily service is one big splash that reminds the U.S. market that Etihad isn't going into this gently.
Convention attendees spend more than domestic business travelers and foreign leisure tourists, making them and the expensive meetings they attend Abu Dhabi’s best bet for increasing tourism GDP.
It's doubtful that the fund is enthusiastic about every property in the portfolio, but it's likely getting a good deal as few other investors could easily relieve a bank of 42 hotels without breaking a sweat.
Abu Dhabi is a perfect case study of the benefits, and frankly the necessity, of taking outdated tourism information into today’s global digital content world, one that the industry is slowing adapting to.
Abu Dhabi's ambitions to create an art mecca by sheer will power and checkbook is impressive and a nice match for an artist with many of the same qualities.
It has less to do with the which airline is based at the airport (Etihad in Abu Dhabi and Emirates in Dubai) and more to do with Abu Dhabi’s rapidly growing tourism industry.
Abu Dhabi's brand extension of France's most prestigious museum is busy snapping up great works of art -- it's only borrowing the Louvre's name -- prior to its highly anticipated opening in 2015.