The most prominent international brands specializing in luxury hotels are racing to book a site in Saudi Arabia, with the Gulf kingdom’s tendency to attract tourism.
In its report, the newspaper said:New York PostThe openness led by Saudi Crown Prince, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is an essential part of building a tourism economy and transforming the oil-dependent kingdom into a global tourist destination.
The newspaper pointed out that the most prominent international brands specialized in the hotel and hospitality sector are racing to obtain a position in Saudi Arabia through various projects in the capital, Riyadh and Jeddah, the city overlooking the Red Sea, in addition to other cities.
Mohammed bin Salman hopes to attract around 100 million visitors by 2030 after it managed to attract 17.5 million international visitors in 2019, according to the World Tourism Organization.
The American newspaper said that these numbers will make the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia one of the most visited countries on earth.
Until September 2019, Saudi Arabia was closed to foreign tourism when the oil-rich kingdom announced that visitors from 49 countries could enter for a fee of just $117 at the airport.
Months later, the Corona virus hit the world and contributed to the closure of international borders for most parts of the world in 2020, hitting the tourism and services sector.
Also during that period, Saudi Arabia neutralized the authority of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which is known for stifling the freedom of expression and harassing women. It also granted women the right to obtain a driver’s license and reopened cinemas and international music concerts.
Also in 2019, a huge music festival called “Middle Beast” was launched in Riyadh, where thousands of people arrived from all over the world to participate in this global event. In the same year, Mariah Carey became the first to perform in front of a mixed-sex audience in Saudi Arabia.
Riyadh, Jeddah and AlUla
In Riyadh, Saudi Arabia plans to double the population of the capital by 2030 by developing the Diriyah Gate with a total value of $50.6 billion.
The 370-acre mega-development – about 13 times the size of Hudson Yards – will be a cornerstone of luxury hotels, with the site attracting an estimated 25 million visitors annually.
And the Diriyah Gate project that stands on its pyramid, Jerry Inzerillo, is a city of land within a city that will house dozens of hotels, tens of thousands of new apartments, a university, a subway, an opera house, four Michelin-starred restaurants, countless palm trees and a vast, scenic-style shopping district. The Champs Elysees.
The project will be fully completed by 2026. But the first phase of it opens this fall around the ruins of a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Al-Diriyah (20 km west of Riyadh) is the capital of the first Saudi state and the cradle of the royal family in the country.
Diriyah attracts international hotel chains such as Orient Express, Raffles, Park Hyatt, Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons and many other luxury western brands.
In western Jeddah, the environment-focused Red Sea project will bring 16 new hotels to the 11,000-square-mile resort archipelago in the coming years, according to the New York Post.
A large number of luxury hotels will work on the project, including the 430-room Grand Hyatt on Chora Island (the center of the project, which will eventually include a marina and 18-hole championship golf course), and the nature-focused Raffles Resort to the St. Regis.
The newspaper stated that the city will witness the opening of a new airport in early 2023.
In AlUla, an extensive archaeological site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Habitas and Banyan Tree hotels open in October.
Al-Ula is several times larger than the Jordanian city of Petra and displays dozens of ancient Nabatean tombs carved into sandstone across a huge valley about 200 miles north of Medina.