CEO of Saudi's $63 Billion Diriyah Project Talks Hotels and Tourism

27.09.2024 - 14:59 / skift.com / Michael Mina

Will Saudi Arabia’s Diriyah Gate be finished on schedule by 2030? Does it have the right mix of luxury and affordable hotels? Will tourists come year-round? 

Those are some of the questions we had for Jerry Inzerillo, Group CEO of Diriyah Gate Development Authority, who was in New York City Tuesday for the United Nations General Assembly.

Inzerillo was previously CEO of Forbes Travel Guide and spent decades at Kerzner, where he drove the creation of One&Only Resorts and Atlantis.

Diriyah Gate, near Riyadh, is one of several major projects Saudi Arabia is developing as part of its Vision 2030 plan to spur its tourism economy. 

Diriyah’s hotel development has seen some delays, but Inzerillo said the project is on track. “After six years, we’re on time and on budget,” he said. “We’re roaring towards 2030 when Diriyah Gate will be finished.”

Inzerillo said 37 hotel management deals are signed, with groundbreakings on about a dozen due in October. The plan allows room for five more hotels to be signed.

The first of the luxury hotels planned for Diriyah Gate — Marriott’s Bab Samhan, a Luxury Collection Hotel — has begun taking bookings for dates in January 2025. It was originally promised for 2023.

Other big tourism projects in Saudi Arabia, such as The Red Sea and AlUla, have begun to open hotels. The Red Sea has opened three of its 50 planned hotels and pushed forward some other opening dates.

“Giga projects are choppy in development because some of the buildings are very complex,” Inzerillo said.

Diriyah Gate’s 138-room Bab Samhan Hotel, with a Michael Mina restaurant, was the easiest to open because it was built in an area of the project with underground utilities and infrastructure already installed.

Unlike the now-open Bab Samhan Hotel, the other hotels are being built in a different area of Dirihyah Gate. In this spot, developers first wanted to install underground infrastructure, such as thousands of parking spaces, delivery tunnels, and power and water lines. But the site was rocky.

“We don’t use explosives for demolition,” Inzerillo said. “So we had to core drill [through the rock], which took time.” They’ve just filled the underground area, and the hotel construction can start, he said.

Diriyah Gate’s 37 hotels focus mostly on luxury. However, Inzerillo said that the project has different zones for different needs.

“We feel that Diriyah Gate should be very high-end, like Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star,” Inzerillo said. “We’re building it like a Florence, like a Marrakech. Saudi tourism will create urbanization so the hotels have decent occupancies and RevPARs [revenue per available room].”

“There will be other giga projects in other parts of the city dedicated to high volume tourism, with hotels