Turning Deserts Into Destinations

The news struck first at the Jordan World Economic Forum: a consortium under leadership of Saad Hariri is creating Saraya Aqaba, a major new leisure project in the Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan’s Red Sea destination regarded as very promising for international recreational and aquatic tourism. Ten years ago, the Aqaba region featured little more than 1,000 hotel rooms and an interesting topography and spectacular coral reefs nearby. Today, the area is focus of two huge tourism development zones with several large-scale projects each, and after visitor numbers to Jordan last year began rebounding from their 2002/2003 lows, hotels are hot properties. Partners in Saraya Aqaba from the private sector are Hariri’s Saraya Jordan enterprise and the Arab Bank, teaming up with the kingdom’s Social Security Corporation and Aqaba Development Corporation on the public sector side. What made the news of Saraya Aqaba savory from an investment perspective was that the