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Red Sea Global to open 19 luxury hotels in 2025

By Andrew Hammond
Red Sea hotels Desert Rock, 'a hotel that’s literally built into the side of the mountain', is expected to open this year Read Sea Global
Desert Rock, a hotel that's 'built into the side of the mountain', is expected to open this year
  • 83% of estimated budget spent
  • Four new hotels in 2024
  • Pipeline of projects to 2030

Red Sea Global, the Saudi giga-project, is due to open 19 new luxury hotels in 2025, it was revealed this week.

It will also be opening two hotels this year, including one carved into a mountainside, an official said.

“2023 saw us opening our first resort, and in 2024 we’ve opened another two resorts and there are another two to come later on this year,” Ben Edwards, Red Sea Global’s group head of cost, commercial and procurement, told delegates at a hospitality sector forum in Dubai. 

“2025 is a massive year for us. We’ll open 11 resorts at the Red Sea and eight at Amaala and there’s a pipeline of projects that takes us through to 2030,” Edwards said. 

Red Sea Global is one of the Public Investment Fund-owned giga-projects at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s $1.25 trillion economic development plans. 

Edwards said the total cost of contracts so far was SAR73.3 billion ($19.6 billion), including SAR27.3 billion in 2023, almost 83 percent of the $23.6 billion total estimated by the real estate consultancy Knight Frank for the whole Red Sea Global project. 

Red Sea Global’s total contribution to GDP during its years of construction would be $62 billion, Edwards said.

The two hotels to open this year are the Shebara, which features over-water villas in specially made pod-like steel orbs, and Desert Rock, one of Red Sea Globals’ few island hotels.

“Desert Rock is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. This is a hotel that’s literally built into the side of the mountain,” Edwards said, describing it as a unique luxury hotel in what looks like a lunar landscape. 

“They drilled and blasted a 180 metre-long tunnel through the mountain and formed these cave-unit guest bedrooms.”

Summer, Plant, Tree The Shebara hotel, due to be opening this yearRed Sea Global
The Shebara hotel, due to be opening this year

The Saudi ministry of tourism has announced that 4.2 million tourists visited the kingdom in the first seven months of this year solely for leisure and entertainment purposes.

This is a 25 percent increase year on year and seven times that of 2019.

Saudi Arabia is also spending around $15 billion on a luxury resort at the ancient site of AlUla which will be chiselled into the face of its rock formations and mountains. 

Lower than anticipated oil prices mean that PIF is under pressure to maintain funding flows to the massive projects, despite the Saudi-led Opec+ policy of oil output cuts to try to keep prices up. The country wants tourism to account for 10 percent of GDP by 2030. 

Red Sea Global says it plans 50 hotels at its Red Sea location and 29 at Amaala, all due for completion by 2030. It is employing 70,000 people in the construction of the hotels. 

Edwards said the Red Sea Global resorts, all aimed at high-end tourism, would “position the kingdom very firmly on the world tourism map” and open Saudi Arabia to the world. 

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