Ports & destinations


jobs and high-tech industries. Tourism is central to this strategy, and why not? From pre-Islamic tombs to elegant mosques, travellers to the kingdom can uncover the whole story of the Middle East. More to the point, Jeddah may soon reclaim its title as a city of comings and goings. At the end of July, just across the bay from Jeddah’s now-crumbling old town, the MSC Bellissima puffed out from a new terminal, the first large cruise ship ever to leave a Saudi port. Working closely with local officials, the Italian operator plans many more trips, carrying passengers from Jeddah up the Red Sea on a seven-day tour to Jordan and Egypt. In time, Saudi Arabia may even be consolidated into the broader cobweb of Middle Eastern cruising – though the country’s idiosyncratic culture means it’s likely to stay isolated a while yet.


Gulfs apart


In the popular imagination, the Arabian Peninsula is a place bereft of water. The Empty Quarter shimmers to mind: a desert the size of Texas yet without a single oasis to quench your thirst. But travel far enough in either direction and you’ll find two of the most strategically important watercourses on earth. And though the Red Sea, to the west, is only now trekking down the road to cruising stardom, its eastern cousin has long enjoyed international attention. For years, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have welcomed operators like Aida and Celebrity, their ports on the Persian Gulf offering a gateway to the Indian Ocean. As Shaun Ebelthite, editor at the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research explains, these smaller Arab monarchies were motivated by similar reasons as the Saudis themselves – moving their economies away from “a dependency on oil”.


Why has Saudi Arabia, with its 1,100 miles of Red Sea coastline and easy access to the Suez Canal, been slower to adapt? In part, the answer is cultural. Deliberately isolated by its fundamentalist rulers, until 2019 foreigners could only visit the kingdom for business or pilgrimage. Traditional tourists were essentially banned, while women couldn’t visit unless they were met at the airport by a husband or male guardian. The country’s ferocious penal code – there were 184 executions in 2019, which probably didn’t encourage tourism either. Infrastructure has traditionally been challenging too. Jeddah may have always been a commercial hub, but much of Saudi’s Red Sea coast is mountainous, lacking natural harbours. Ebelthite recalls the situation when Dubai started its own cruising experiment, with tourists forced to line up on an open dock before going through customs in a makeshift tent. For someone as media savvy as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto head of Saudi Arabia since 2017, that image is unlikely to have been satisfactory. So it was that, as part of a $1.3tn investment in the post-oil economy, Saudi officials developed the Jeddah Islamic Port, capable of


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accommodating 2,500 passengers at once. Together with five other new ports, notably up the coast at Yanbu, and by 2028 Saudi’s Red Sea harbours may be welcoming 1.5 million punters. That’s echoed by a broad easing of the tourism regime. Single women are now allowed, while many Western visitors can easily apply for a visa online. As the government’s website puts it, the kingdom is finally “opening its doors” to the public. It likely helps, too, that Saudi Arabia has been so successful in the battle against Covid-19. Unlike its more dysfunctional Arab neighbours, the kingdom – at the time of writing – administered 31.6 million vaccine shots, or 90.79 doses per 100 people. To put that into perspective, Egypt has managed a rate of 6.4 doses.


Opposite page: The Jeddah Sea shore of Saudi Arabia may open its doors to cruising tourists.


“We’re very optimistic about further developments in the Red Sea and the Gulf as we look to retain our number one position in the region and see our share increase.”


Shaun Ebelthite, Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies


Of course, these shifts are important key prerequisites for a buoyant cruise industry. But the actual draws of Saudi Arabia are impressive too. Achille Staiano, vice president global sales at MSC Cruises, is unambiguous. He describes the kingdom’s heritage as “extremely impressive”, claiming that travellers will easily be able to “go ashore and explore plenty of undiscovered destinations”. Glance at the Bellissima’s itinerary and it’s hard to disagree – even if you just limit yourself to Saudi Arabia’s pre-Islamic history. Hegra, for instance, is a Nabatean city built over 2,000 years ago. It may be practically unknown outside the peninsula, but its tombs are spectacular, carved so nonchalantly into the desert rock that they almost feel painted. From there, cruisers can tour the country’s rich Muslim heritage. That includes Al-Wajh, an old fishing town with houses made from coral, and Jeddah itself, with its medieval Shafi’i mosque. More active travellers have plenty to engage them too, with outstanding diving and sandy beaches right up to the Jordanian border.


Conservative estimates


How will cruises in Saudi Arabia actually work? For any other country, that question might feel unnecessary, even strange. But with the kingdom’s deep conservative instincts, MSC has had to walk on tiptoes as it approaches its Arabian adventure. That’s doubly important considering MSC’s national partners. Unusually, the Italian operator is organising its cruises with Cruise Saudi, a public body owned by the kingdom's main investment arm. Given Cruise Saudi and its royal backers hope to generate over 50,000 oil-free jobs by 2025, and eventually transform Jeddah into a fully-fledged home port rivalling Dubai or Abu Dhabi, there’s clearly little room for manoeuvre.


28% Stats NZ 53


The growth of New Zealand’s cruise industry in 2018.


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