Comparing AlUla and The Red Sea Saudi Arabia’s Giga Projects on Tourism towards a Sustainable Change in Destination Development

Lorenzo David Filippi and Silvia Mazzetto ()
Additional contact information
Lorenzo David Filippi: Ph.D. Department of Architecture ‘Teorie e Progetto’, Sapienza University, 00185 Rome, Italy
Silvia Mazzetto: Department of Architecture, SALab Sustainable Architecture Lab, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh 12435, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-17

Abstract: This paper examines architecture for tourism, focusing on destination design. In the past forty years, tourism destinations and their impact have been affected and transformed by emerging topics such as the impact of social media and the necessity of sustainable indicators in the tourism industry. In the global panorama of ongoing tourism transformations, Saudi Arabia has recently established new governmental opening regulations that started in 2019 for visitors and tourist visa entry. The country is facing a rapidly transforming economy, and new destinations for tourism will impact the country’s growth in the coming years as part of the Sustainable Destination Program in alignment with the ambitious targets of the Saudi National Vision 2030. The adopted methodology of the study compares selected parameters of two significant Saudi Arabian case studies, AlUla and The Red Sea Project (TRSP), for the ongoing sustainable tourism destination development of planned tourist giga projects. According to the findings, AlUla and TRSP demonstrated an intense commitment to sustainable tourism through their efforts concerning protected areas, environmentally friendly transport, and significant rewilding and reforestation. The research’s conclusion emphasizes Saudi Arabia’s commitment to innovative thinking, long-term growth, and sustainable tourism. The study’s implication is primarily suited for destination design; it suggests potential applicability even in smaller-scale tourism development projects or additional comparisons in sustainability design approaches in diverse contexts, particularly in the MENA region.

Keywords: destination design; sustainable destination development; tourism impact; GCC sustainability; tourism economies; tourism sustainability; environmental impacts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/5/2117/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/5/2117/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:5:p:2117-:d:1350828

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().