Saudi Golf Victory Is Latest Win in Trillion-Dollar Tourism Rebrand
Tourists will be key to Saudi Arabia’s economy in the future. Here’s a quick recap of where that push stands today.
Tourists during a visit to the ancient archaeological site of Hegra in AlUla, Saudi Arabia, in January.
Photographer: Jeremy Suyker/BloombergHi, it’s Lisa Fleisher, your luxury correspondent in Dubai. The biggest news in sports and tourism this week was the sudden wrap-up of a massive fight between the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and the PGA Tour.
We had just written about Saudi Arabia’s use of icons of Western culture to “excite its burgeoning younger generation and supercharge its tourism industry.” In the same story: “campaigners say Saudi Arabia is deflecting attention from a poor domestic record on free speech and other human rights,” as well as an international image “battered by a brutal war in Yemen and murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.”