Axione Development to Build Advanced Cold Chain Infrastructure at Abu Dhabi Food Hub

Abu Dhabi, UAE – 20  May 2026: Abu Dhabi Food Hub, AD Ports Group’s integrated food trade and logistics hub, announced the signing of an agreement with Axione Development for the development of advanced cold chain infrastructure in Abu Dhabi.

In accordance with the agreement, which underlines the growing confidence in the Emirate’s upcoming premier food platform, Axione Development will develop a dedicated cold chain facility on a 37,000 sqm plot under a 50-year land lease agreement to support the broader ecosystem of traders and businesses that will operate within Abu Dhabi Food Hub’s integrated marketplace. Designed as enabling infrastructure for the wider market, the facility will strengthen critical cold chain capabilities serving wholesale trade, distribution and value-added food supply activities.

Abdulla Al Hameli, CEO Economic Cities & Free Zones, AD Ports Group, said: “Food security is a national priority for the UAE and an essential pillar of our sustainable economic development. Strong partnerships such as our deal with Axione Development strengthen this long-term goal of world-class infrastructure, diversified trade corridors, and strong partnerships between the public and private sectors. Within this wider vision, Abu Dhabi Food Hub represents how national priorities can be translated into practical market infrastructure that supports the efficient movement, storage, and trade of food products. We are pleased to see the project continue to progress through partnerships such as this, reinforcing its role in becoming a central food trade gateway for the UAE and the wider region.”

The agreement reflects continued momentum in the development of Abu Dhabi Food Hub’s next-generation wholesale market ecosystem, which brings together wholesale trade, logistics, warehousing, distribution and digital enablement within a single integrated platform designed to enhance the efficiency and resilience of regional food supply chains.

The development of advanced cold chain infrastructure forms a key component of the Abu Dhabi Food Hub’s broader proposition to support the UAE’s long-term food security ambitions through modern, future-ready trade and supply chain infrastructure. The agreement also signals expanding customer and investor interest in Abu Dhabi Food Hub as construction progresses, and the project advances toward operational readiness by Q4 2026.

As a landmark agreement within the Hub’s commercial development journey, the partnership with Axione Development further reinforces Abu Dhabi Food Hub’s role in shaping a globally connected wholesale and logistics ecosystem for food trade in the region.

Jens Michel, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Food Hub, said: “Our objective is to build an ecosystem where traders and supply chain partners can operate with greater efficiency, reliability, and access to modern infrastructure. This agreement with Axione Development marks an important client milestone for Abu Dhabi Food Hub and reinforces the market demand for purpose-built facilities that support the evolving needs of regional and global food trade.”

Mikhail Zarkhi, Managing Partner of Axione Development, said: “We are pleased to partner with Abu Dhabi Food Hub on this strategic development. Our focus is to deliver modern, high-specification cold chain infrastructure that meets the evolving operational requirements of today’s food businesses. Through this project, we aim to support food trade with efficient and reliable infrastructure capabilities that enable business growth, strengthen supply continuity, and contribute to a more resilient food ecosystem.”

Daniel Ilizarov, Managing Partner of Axione Development, said: “This project represents a strategic step in expanding institutional-grade infrastructure within the UAE. We see Abu Dhabi Food Hub as a unique platform combining trade, logistics, and regulatory efficiency, which creates a compelling environment for long-term capital deployment. Our objective is to deliver scalable, high-performance assets that align with global standards and support the continued growth of regional food supply chains.”

Strategically located between Abu Dhabi and Dubai in KEZAD, Abu Dhabi Food Hub is set to become a central gateway for food trade, connecting global supply with regional demand through modern infrastructure, efficient logistics, and a collaborative business environment.

Rethinking Summer Travel: A Shift Toward More Considered Stays

 Photo credit: Ananda in the Himalayas

Ananda in the Himalayas (India)

A higher-altitude wellness stay designed for travelers looking for a deeper reset

As travelers place greater value on trips that deliver lasting impact, Ananda in the Himalayas is focusing this summer on longer, more immersive stays, with a seasonal Summer Wellness Offer available from June 1 through July 31, 2026. The program includes savings of up to 40 percent on stays of five nights or more, with fully inclusive pricing that covers accommodation, consultations before and after arrival, personalized therapies, private yoga and meditation sessions, and tailored meals, creating a structured framework for longer, outcome-driven stays.

Set in the Himalayan foothills above Rishikesh, the location naturally lends itself to summer travel. Temperatures are cooler than in much of the region, and the setting feels removed from the intensity of peak-season destinations. Guests follow individualized programs grounded in Ayurveda, yoga, and meditation, often staying for a week or longer to work through specific health and wellbeing goals, from sleep, stress, and burnout to more chronic health conditions such as diabetes or hormonal and metabolic imbalances.

What makes the experience distinct is the sense of structure built into each day, with guided practices and treatments creating a sense of progression over time. As more travelers move away from short trips in favor of something more meaningful, Ananda offers an experience that feels both restorative and purposeful.

This reflects a broader shift toward commitment travel, where time away is designed to deliver lasting results rather than a quick escape. 

Photo credit: The Dylan Amsterdam

The Dylan Amsterdam (the Netherlands)

A more relaxed way to experience a European city at the height of summer

Summer in European cities can feel increasingly intense, with packed itineraries and crowded streets leaving little room to enjoy being there. The Dylan Amsterdam addresses this with its Unscripted Summer experience, available from June 21 through September 20, designed to slow the pace and create more space in the day.

Located along the Keizersgracht canal, the 41-room hotel feels notably removed from the city once inside. Guests arrive through a gated entrance into a quiet courtyard, creating an immediate sense of separation from the energy of the city outside. This balance between central location and privacy becomes especially valuable during peak season.

At the center of the experience is a private canal boat journey at golden hour, with a three-course menu served on board and curated across three of the city’s leading kitchens. This is paired with a two-night stay in one of the hotel’s luxury rooms, including daily breakfast at Bar Brasserie OCCO, alongside a more flexible framework that encourages exploration. Complimentary bicycles and personalized walking routes provide a sense of direction without overplanning, while a drink in the hotel’s secluded garden offers a quieter moment to return to at the end of the day.

Amsterdam’s mild summer climate and walkable layout support this more relaxed flow, allowing guests to explore without pressure. For travelers rethinking how they approach city travel, this offers a more flexible and manageable alternative. Increasingly, this points to slower city travel, where travelers pull back from overpacked itineraries and allow more space for spontaneity and ease. 

Photo credit: Imperial Hotel, Kamikochi

Imperial Hotel (Japan)

A more balanced way to experience Japan, pairing major cities with a seasonal alpine escape

Japan remains one of the most in-demand destinations, but the pace of travel there is beginning to shift. Instead of moving quickly between cities, travelers are building in time to slow down. The Imperial Hotel portfolio supports this by combining stays in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto with Kamikochi, a mountain resort region in the Japanese Alps that is only accessible during part of the year.

Located at around 1,500 meters, Kamikochi offers a cooler and quieter counterpart to Japan’s major cities. First brought to wider attention in the late 19th century by British missionary Walter Weston, it has since captivated travelers from around the world. At its center is the Imperial Hotel, Kamikochi, which opened in 1933 as Japan’s first mountain resort and remains one of the area’s most iconic stays, with a classic alpine lodge feel and views of the surrounding peaks and river valley. The experience is shaped by the landscape, with walking paths connecting sites such as Kappa Bridge, Taisho Pond, and Myojin Pond. The region welcomes over 1.2 million visitors annually, yet remains carefully managed, with access limited to protect its natural environment and preserve a sense of calm.

Open from mid-April through November 15 this year before closing for winter, Kamikochi brings a strong sense of seasonality to a Japan itinerary. Traveling between major cities and this alpine setting allows for a more balanced and intentional rhythm.

This approach highlights the rise of dual-speed travel, where high-energy exploration is balanced with quieter, more reflective time, allowing travelers to engage more meaningfully with both place and pace. 

Photo credit: Hotel Belmar

Hotel Belmar (Costa Rica)

A cooler, nature-driven alternative to traditional tropical summer travel

As summer temperatures rise in many coastal destinations, travelers are increasingly looking toward higher-elevation environments that offer a different kind of tropical experience. Hotel Belmar, set in Costa Rica’s Monteverde cloud forest, provides that shift with a naturally cooler climate and a strong connection to nature. The summer months fall within the region’s green season, bringing fewer crowds and a more vibrant landscape. Instead of peak-season congestion, the experience feels slower and more grounded, making it well suited for travelers looking to spend more time in one place.

Longer stays are encouraged through seasonal offers that weave together wellness, guided forest experiences, and the slower cadence of discovery that define Monteverde. Days unfold in close relationship with the cloud forest, from trails winding through the property and immersions at Belmar’s SAVIA reserve to farm-to-table dining supplied by Finca Madre Tierra, the hotel’s regenerative farm.

For travelers rethinking what a summer trip should feel like, Monteverde offers something distinctly different from a beach escape. The combination of cooler weather and deeper immersion creates a more restorative experience overall.

In turn, it underscores growing interest in nature-led travel, where time away is shaped by connection to the environment and a slower, more deliberate approach.

Liquibase Financial Services Playbook Offers New Findings, Best Practices to Let FinServs Protect Data and Navigate the Mythos-Class Threat Age

While Financial Institutions Primarily Focus on AI Models, Mythos‑Class Attackers Target Their Databases. Research Across Hundreds of Engagements Finds Universal Problems. 

AUSTIN, Texas, May 20, 2026 – Liquibase, provider of database change governance solutions used by many of the world’s leading financial services organizations, today announced The Financial Services Playbook for Governed Database Change, a new executive guide designed to help financial institutions modernize and secure one of the last major control gaps in enterprise technology delivery: database change.

Built for CIOs, CTOs, platform engineering leaders, database architects, and compliance teams, the playbook examines how banks, insurers, payment processors, fintechs, and capital markets firms continue to face a growing governance gap between highly automated application delivery pipelines and still-manual database change processes.

“Every other layer of the software delivery pipeline has been automated, policy-driven, and made auditable,” said Ryan McCurdy, Vice President at Liquibase. “But at many financial institutions, database changes are still routed through tickets, manually reviewed, and directly executed in production. In today’s regulatory environment, that is no longer simply inefficient. It is an operational and compliance exposure.”

Field research for the Playbook was conducted across hundreds of financial services engagements spanning enterprise banks, regional institutions, credit unions, global insurers, payment processors, fintechs, and capital markets firms.

Among key findings:

• The problem is universal. Manual database change execution is the industry baseline, not a maturity problem at lagging organizations.

• Compliance is the accelerant. SOX, PCI DSS, SOC 2, and DORA are driving purchase decisions. When auditors flag deficiencies, budget materializes.

• The DBA bottleneck is structural. Executive mandates to remove DBA involvement from routine changes are appearing at the largest institutions.

• The proven path is pilot, platform, enterprise. Start with two to five applications, build the pipeline through platform engineering, then scale.

• Multi-database reality is the baseline. Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Snowflake, DynamoDB, Databricks. Partial coverage is not governance.

Organizations that close this gap deliberately will set the standard. The rest will be forced to catch up by their auditors, their regulators, or a production incident.

Drawing on field research from hundreds of financial services engagements, the playbook argues that manual database change execution remains the industry norm, even at highly mature institutions. It outlines how mounting regulatory scrutiny from frameworks including SOX, PCI DSS 4.0, SOC 2, DORA, and emerging operational resilience requirements is accelerating demand for governed database delivery pipelines.

The playbook also addresses a growing concern around AI adoption in software delivery.

“Financial institutions are entering a phase of AI adoption under a perilous assumption: that governance frameworks built for human-driven systems can simply be extended to autonomous agents,” said Chris Steffen, Research VP, Enterprise Management Associates. “That assumption is now clearly outdated. Governance that ends too early is a crucial misstep, one that leaves databases exposed to a kill chain that’s now moving with unprecedented speed and lethality.”

Liquibase recently explored that emerging threat in its analysis: Banks Focus on AI Models. Mythos Class Attackers Focus on Your Databases.

Rather than focusing narrowly on tooling, the playbook walks readers through the operational realities financial institutions face today, including DBA bottlenecks, fragmented deployment tooling, audit evidence reconstruction, schema drift, and growing separation-of-duties concerns.

The guide also details a practical maturity path for organizations seeking to modernize database governance. Chapters include:

• The governance gap: why database delivery remains structurally different from application delivery
• How governance failures create operational, audit, and regulatory exposure
• The evolving role of DBAs, platform engineering, and compliance teams
• An eight-principle target operating model for governed database change
• A phased rollout strategy covering pilot, platform, and enterprise adoption
• A framework for evaluating build-versus-buy governance approaches
• Metrics financial leaders can use to justify modernization investments
• The impact of AI-generated SQL and hybrid cloud database environments on governance strategy

TL;DR: FinServ Operational Resilience Is At Risk

Manual database change execution is throttling data security and is the FinServ industry baseline, not a maturity problem at slow-adopter organizations.

Organizations that embed governance directly into database delivery pipelines now will gain operational resilience and regulatory advantages. Institutions that delay modernization risk being forced into reactive remediation by data loss or corruption incidents, by audit pressures, and by competitive market forces.

The executive summary of The Financial Services Playbook for Governed Database Change is available now from Liquibase: https://www.liquibase.com/resources/ebooks/financial-services-playbook-for-governed-database-change