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XAAN Introduces Web App For Dubai Holiday Home Guests
The startup’s extensive hospitality knowledge will ensure an exceptional guest experience by verifying service providers and maintaining high standards of quality.
XAAN, a digital-first startup in the vacation rental space, has officially launched a new web app designed to enhance stays for guests of rental apartments in Dubai. The service aims to maintain “hotel standards” within the industry and will also help connect apartment owners and guests with local suppliers and boost revenue from the sale of supplemental services.
“Digitalization is essential for 90% of holiday homes to compete with hotels and increase profits. XAAN offers a solution by providing advanced technology, hotel-grade services, and hospitality standards to make vacation rental businesses successful and profitable,” says Gleb Mykhailov, XAAN CEO.
To provide their unique solution, the XAAN development team has integrated with the task management system Teamatix, and the startup is now taking its offering a step further by introducing a guest-facing web app.
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By verifying service providers, maintaining high standards of quality, and giving guests access to XAAN’s extensive hospitality knowledge, the team hopes to ensure an exceptional experience for travelers heading to Dubai on vacation or business trips.
As well as booking apartments, guests can reserve spa experiences, book laundry services, request breakfast or cleaning services, call taxis, and even book sightseeing tours. Overall, the new app shows great promise and offers the opportunity for holiday home business owners to increase their revenue.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
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The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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