How Saudi Arabia’s tourism Dream proved too good to be true?

Saudi Arabia, since the very beginning, has been known for its religious significance. The Kingdom is home to two holiest cities, namely, Makkah and Madinah, in the whole world. Every year millions of Muslims head towards the Holy city of Makkah in order to perform the holy pilgrimages of Umrah and Hajj. The minor pilgrimage of Umrah can be performed at any time of the year and does not have to be performed at a specific time of the year.

In today’s economy, it is quite expensive to travel for Umrah. The rates of flights and hotel stays could be quite expensive and on top of that the transport and food can add an excessive strain to your pockets. During such financially draining economy one must look around and compare the prices in order to save some extra bucks from their budget trips. Consulting the trusted Islamic travel agency and availing their Best Umrah packages, is the ultimate way to save extra time, energy and money.

Saudi Arabia’s Tourism dream

Saudi Arabia’s tourism dream is not at all a smooth road, as it is facing a lot of hurdles. The overly ambitious giga projects like NEOM’s The Line, struggles with physics and financing as it is relying on the massive investment, slow development of infrastructure and challenges in balancing the ultra-luxury along with mass-luxury with mass tourism’s scale makes the vision appear unrealistic and overly optimistic along with some core components such as the redesigning of The Line.

The Vision 2030 promised futuristic cities, vast luxury resorts and cultural revival, but the ugly truth shows huge financial and logistical obstacles which are casting doubts on the feasibility of achieving the original vision by the Vision 2030 deadline.

Key reasons behind the stumbling of vision 2030

Saudi Arabia has many ancient monuments that one can visit starting from the AlUla, old city Jeddah and the edge of the world. People from Manchester who are looking forward to visiting the natural sites and want to visit the kingdom for the adventure purpose, must apply for Umrah visa or can get Manchester Umrah Packages and add all these places in their itinerary. As far as the vision 2030 projects are concerned, the key reasons behind the stumbling of this futuristic project are describes in the guide below.

1.     Unrealistic Giga-Projects

The most evident example of this is, The Line, which is a 170km-long city, and is facing issues with the basic engineering, cost, and practicality, which is then leading to a massive downsizing and slowing down of development related to the infrastructure.

2.     Financial Strain

The sheer cost of these projects is immense, which is straining the resources and is raising questions about sustainability, especially with the fluctuating oil revenues.

3.     Infrastructure Lag

While the luxury resorts like Nujuma are emerging, the supporting infrastructure including transport and connectivity, isn’t keeping pace with the grand plans for mass tourism.

4.     Over-Reliance on Luxury

The initial focus on the ultra-luxury tourism is expensive and limits the visitor numbers, clashing with goals for broader economic diversification.

5.     Slow Progress and Scalability

Turning the conceptual designs into reality takes a lot of time and many ambitious features like Trojena’s ski village or the NEOM’s stadium, which remains unbuilt, making the timeline seem overly ambitious.

6.     Balancing Vision and Reality

The dream mixes hyper-modernity with deep history but scaling this blend for millions of tourists presents complex management and infrastructural challenges.

Major challenges faced by the NEOM city of Saudi Arabia

Looking at the big picture of the project, an internal audit report reputedly found the evidence of deliberate manipulation of finances by certain members of management. Some of the interesting facts are mentioned in the guide below.

• NEOM is expected to be completed by 2080, at the cost of $8.8 trillion, which is more than 25 times of Saudi Arabia’s annual budget.
• While a good portion of NEOM was supposed to be completed by the end of the decade as part of the country’s vision 2030, this is now being referred to as a generational investment that will surely bear fruit in decades to come.
• Apparently, a lot of NEOM’s over-the-top architectural and design choices are because the crown prince is a big fan of video games and sci-fi movies, but this has made the project infinitely more complicated, as many of these developments defy physics.
• “The Line” is NEOM’s most ambitious project, and apparently the initial architect wanted to express concerns about the costs to the crown prince, but NEOM’s executives rejected his request.
• The person who oversaw the vision for NEOM told the colleagues and McKinsey consultants in an email to “not proactively mention cost at all”, and someone was “removed after they challenged cost estimates”, according to an audit report.
• When it comes to “The Line”, the initial plan was for it to be 10 miles and have nine million residents by 2030, and now the goal is to be 1.5 miles by 2034.

While the heritage sites are still showing promise and attracting the visitors, the core futuristic elements of the tourism vision are proving to be exceptionally difficult, leading to a more cautious, scaled-back approach for some projects.