On a four-day cruise, the ship sailed through major development sites including the Red Sea project - designed to be a Maldivian-style resort destination featuring dozens of picturesque islands - and the luxurious Amaala tourism project.
Saudi Arabia:
Sailing through pristine islands and turquoise lakes, the first cruise ship to offer Saudi tours serves a dual purpose - launching tourism despite coronavirus concerns and showcasing mega-projects challenging planned austerity along the Red Sea.
In August, the Silver Spirit cruise ship began offering tours along the pristine coast that the oil nation aims to turn into a global magnet for tourism and investment as part of a plan to reduce dependence on oil revenues.
The luxury vessel, leased by a company owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, provides a window into the billions of dollars in "mega projects" the kingdom is pushing ahead despite the sharp economic downturn.
"We are entering the Red Sea into the world," Tourism Minister Ahmed al-Khatib told AFP in an interview on board the ship.
"We are revealing the value of the Red Sea."
On a four-day cruise, the ship sailed through major development sites including the Red Sea project - designed to be a Maldivian-style resort destination featuring dozens of picturesque islands - and the luxurious Amaala tourism project.
For a few hours, it also docked on two islands including Sindala, which makes up a small piece of NEOM, a planned mega-city of $ 500 billion roughly the size of Belgium.
Other than that, cruise passengers were out of the crowd, touring the tiny island surrounded by coral reefs in golf carts and having dinner at a Michelin-starred pop-up restaurant floating along the shore.
Social media influencers invited on the trip have taken pictures in shallow turquoise waters and white sandy beaches.
Unlimited support
Skeptics question the viability of mega projects amid a sharp drop in government revenues due to the virus-led economic downturn and the sharp drop in oil prices.
The world's largest crude exporter says it plans to cut government spending by more than 7 percent next year as the budget deficit is expected to widen to 12 percent of GDP in 2020.
But at the same time, the government is awarding billions of dollars in contracts for what would be the largest construction projects in the world.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund - the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund - has delivered a series of contracts to develop NEOM, the most recent of which was the American project management firm Bechtel and the infrastructure consultancy Aecom.
The Red Sea project has submitted deals worth five billion riyals ($ 1.33 billion) so far, and is expected to award more than 3.5 billion riyals by the end of this year, according to the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED).
"New projects on the Red Sea coast are moving forward despite Covid-19 and lower oil prices," Colin Furman, editor at MEED, told AFP.
"During the next three years, the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be smaller, but its projects will be bigger," he added.
Al-Khatib, a member of the boards of several mega projects including NEOM, said that developments are proceeding "very quickly" with "unlimited support" from the top Saudi leadership.
A cautionary tale
The kingdom introduced the high-end cruise for the first time at a time when an epidemic halted global tourism.
Saudi Arabia launched tourist visas only last year, opening one of the last frontiers of global tourism as a major step in Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's drive to diversify the economy.
With the cheapest tickets priced at around 6,000 riyals ($ 1,600), the cruise aims to attract wealthy local tourists amid the wider disruption of international travel.
In addition to the spacious wings and two private servants, the flight offered rare cosmetic freedoms on land almost completely absent. The cloak-like cloak was mandatory for Saudi women.
However, to preserve the privacy of passengers in their beachwear, cell phones had to be placed in sealed bags during the stopover on the island.
And in a country where alcohol is banned, the ship's bars serve only non-alcoholic beers, Merlot, Chardonnay, and lager.
The Silver Ship Spirit has sailed from King Abdullah Economic City, a multi-billion dollar project near the western city of Jeddah, and serves as a cautionary tale of the mega projects it is exhibiting.
The mega project, launched more than a decade ago as part of the diversification plan to build new cities, appears largely empty and underlines the kingdom's long struggle to attract investment in areas other than fossil fuels.
"The political commitment to push ahead with mega projects appears to be there," said Karen Young, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute.
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