Sailing past pristine islands and turquoise lagoons, the first cruise ship offering Saudi tours serves a twin purpose -- jump-starting tourism despite coronavirus fears and showcasing megaprojects planned along the Red Sea.
In August, the cruise liner Silver Spirit began offering tours along the unspoiled coastline which the Kingdom aspires to turn into a global tourism and investment hotspot as part of a plan to reduce reliance on oil revenue.
Chartered by a company owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the luxury ship offers a window into multi-billion-dollar "giga projects" that the kingdom is forging ahead with despite economic difficulties amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
"We are introducing the Red Sea to the world," Tourism Minister Ahmed al-Khatib told AFP in an interview aboard the ship.
"We are unlocking the value of the Red Sea."
On a four-day cruise, the ship sailed past the sites of key developments including the Red Sea project -- designed to be a Maldives-style resort destination embracing dozens of picturesque islands -- and Amaala, a luxury tourism project.
For a few hours, it also anchored off two islands including Sindala, which forms a sliver of NEOM, a $500 billion planned megacity that is roughly the size of Belgium.
Cruise passengers toured the tiny coral reef-fringed island in golf carts and dined at a Michelin-starred pop-up restaurant perched along the shore.
Social media influencers invited on the trip posed for photoshoots in shallow turquoise waters and sandy white beaches.
- 'Unlimited support' -
The Saudi government is awarding multi-billion dollar contracts for what would be the world's largest construction projects.
The Saudi PIF -- the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund -- has handed out a series of contracts to develop NEOM, most recently to American project management firm Bechtel and infrastructure consulting firm Aecom.
The Red Sea Project has given deals worth five billion riyals ($1.33 billion) so far and is expected to award more worth 3.5 billion riyals by the end of this year, according to the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED).
"The new projects on the Red Sea coast are pushing ahead despite Covid-19 and low oil prices," Colin Foreman, an editor at MEED, told AFP.
Khatib, who sits on the boards of several megaprojects including NEOM, said the developments were moving "very fast" with "unlimited support" from the top Saudi leadership.
The kingdom introduced the high-end cruise for the first time just as the pandemic put a brake on global tourism.
Saudi Arabia launched tourist visas last year, opening up one of the last frontiers of global tourism as a key plank of de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's drive to diversify the economy.
The Silver Spirit set sail from the King Abdullah Economic City, a multi-billion dollar project close to the western city of Jeddah.
