In a year of ups, downs, loops and scoops, Attractions Management looks back at some of the biggest stories to hit the headlines, giving possible indicators of what’s to come in the year ahead.

Controversy hit a project in the Philippines in August, with 'fake-news' threatening to derail the underwater development. Elsewhere, a brain-controlled virtual reality system was unveiled to the world and Unesco revealed plans to safeguard Mosul Museum following the site’s liberation from enemy forces.

Sink or swim

Viacom pulled out of controversial plans to create an underwater Nickelodeon resort and theme park in the Philippines, though its developer announced its intention to push on, hitting out against news which has threatened to sink the project.

Palawan, which is widely recognised as the Philippines' ‘last ecological frontier’, is the site for the planned Coral World Park. Due to open in 2020, the resort will feature restaurants and lounges six meters below sea level. Original plans had called for 1sq km of the 4sq km development to be dedicated to a Nickelodeon park, with IPs such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles included to encourage ocean protection.

There was significant backlash following the project’s announcement in January, with an online petition calling for it to be abandoned reaching more than 260,000 signatures. The widely shared petition argued that the project would have destroyed the marine habitat it was claiming to protect.

Responding to criticism, Coral World spoke out against the “fake news” surrounding the project, stating that the proposed property was a former mining site with no trees and low coral cover, rather than the “pristine land” reported by many. The developer added that the majority of the development would have been on land, with floating structures featuring a glass bottom hull.

Mind powered

Tech startup Neurable took virtual reality to the next level, creating computer interfaces for the brain to allow users to control the technology using only the power of their minds.

Showcased in August at the Siggraph event in Los Angeles, the Boston-based Neurable uses EEG (Electroencephalography) sensors combined with eye-tracking technology to allow users to interact with virtual objects through cerebral activity – creating a brain computer interface (BCI).

“Our approach is science-driven and cross-disciplinary, incorporating elements of neuroscience, biology, statistics, machine learning and design to create the ultimate user interface,” said Neurable CEO and president, Ramses Alcaide. “With Neurable, mixed reality can finally achieve its full potential.”

For the Siggraph event, Neurable debuted Awakening, a VR game preview likened to the Netflix series Stranger Things and made in partnership with eStudiofuture. In the game, the player is a child held prisoner in a government facility. The player discovers they have gained telekinetic powers and must use them to defeat robot guards and free themselves from the lab. The game is played without a handheld controller.

A victory in Iraq

Following a nine-month military operation which saw Iraqi forces regain control of Mosul, Unesco director general, Irina Bokova, welcomed the liberation of the city’s Mosul Museum, setting out plans to safeguard the site.

The museum made headlines in February 2015 when images of its collections being destroyed with sledgehammers by ISIS militants were shared by the world’s media.

The regaining of not only the city but the museum itself, is seen by Unesco as a landmark moment in the battle for the region’s heritage.

"The liberation of the Mosul Museum by the Iraqi armed forces is a turning point for peacebuilding, for the recovery of the Iraqi people and the protection of humanity’s cultural heritage,” said Bokova.

"The museum suffered severe degradations and the entire world witnessed the images of the destruction of its collections in 2015. The emotion provoked at the time must now catalyse into concrete support from the entire international community.”

Check back with Attractions Management tomorrow for a look back at the biggest news from September