SAUDI ARABIA is planning to invest $13 billion on a new ‘tourist city’ in Al Oqair, south of Al Khobar on the kingdom’s east coast. The first phase will cost $27 million, says Prince Sultan bin Salman, chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA).

Al Oqair will create 80,000 jobs and the local mayor said that the municipality would receive at least $27 million in annual revenue from the development. The Al Oqair plan is just one of a series of tourism mega projects that Saudi Arabia is developing. On the Red Sea coast, the government has earmarked sites for development in Tabuk, Yanbu, Makkah, Asir and Jizan provinces.
SCTA officials said that the planned resorts would create a total of 557,000 hotel rooms and 413,000 jobs in the process.
The government expects that the Red Sea projects will attract $40 billion in investment, with annual tourist spending estimated at $2.6 billion.