Work to start on Saudi Arabia’s theme park vision
Disney has a string of resorts across the world, from Florida to Paris and Shanghai.
Now, a complex that has been touted as a rival to the entertainment conglomerate’s most popular parks is to be launched in Saudi Arabia.
King Salman will today inaugurate a multibillion-dollar construction project near Riyadh that will include theme parks, motorsport facilities and a safari park.
US theme-park corporation Six Flags agreed to a deal this month to build a compound at the complex.
The Saudi hope is that the park, known as the Qiddiya Project, will become the must-visit entertainment, sports and cultural centre in the kingdom.
The 33,400-hectare park will be about 40 kilometres south-west of the Saudi capital. The first phase of construction is scheduled for completion in 2022.
King Salman will be joined by investors, local and international officials and company representatives at the announcement ceremony today.
The project is part of a wider effort to diversify the kingdom’s economy away from its dependence on oil.
That scheme is being led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is the chief architect of the ambitious Vision 2030 modernisation project, under which the country has lifted a ban on women driving and is reopening cinemas.
Saudi officials are conscious that the country’s young population needs to be entertained if they are to remain in the kingdom and boost its economy amid lower oil prices.
“About two thirds of the kingdom’s population is under the age of 35,” Dr Fahd Tounsi, an official working on the project, told the Saudi Press Agency.
“There is a great need for the Qiddiya Project to provide them with entertainment.”
Dr Tounsi said that the project demonstrated the “relentless effort to develop giga-projects that will help to achieve many direct and indirect economic returns”.
It will provide the Saudi economy with about US$30 billion (Dh110.19bn), he said, which would be used “to develop the domestic economy and create new job opportunities for Saudi youth”.
Qiddiya chief executive Michael Reininger said that he expected the project to draw foreign investors in entertainment and other sectors, but did not specify the cost of construction.
Saudi Arabia has dazzled investors with plans for hightech projects, paid for in part by its sovereign wealth fund, but some sceptics question their viability in an era of cheaper oil.
The kingdom has unveiled blueprints to build Neom, a mega-project billed as a regional Silicon Valley, and the Red Sea project, a reeffringed resort destination, both worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Analysts say the projects could create funding pressure at a time when the government faces a yawning budget deficit and growth in the kingdom’s non-oil economy is only slowly gathering pace.
In February, Saudi’s General Entertainment Authority announced
About two-thirds of the population is under the age of 35. There is a great need to provide them with entertainment DR FAHD TOUNSI Qiddiya Project
that it would stage more than 5,000 festivals and concerts this year, double the number of last year, and pump $64bn into the sector in the coming decade.
At a Beverly Hills event during Prince Mohammed’s US visit, Saudi dignitaries struck a deal with touring company Feld Entertainment to host several events, including Disney on Ice.
As the huge entertainment park development is set in motion, Saudi royals are building projects to rival those of the Walt Disney Company and courting its top executives to aid their objectives.
As part of his US tour this month, Prince Mohammed met Robert Allen Iger, chairman and chief executive of Disney, for talks on co-operation in entertainment, film and culture.
Young Saudis spend billions of dollars every year to see films and visit amusement parks in neighbouring tourist centres such as Dubai and Bahrain.
But if the Qiddiya Project takes off as planned, the Riyadh complex could become their entertainment hot spot of choice.