FLASH NEWS
Saudi Arabia is building a ski resort in the desert!
2023-11-15 17:13:47 / TRENDING
The ski resort, Trojena, will be available to skiers for three months each year, while the rest of the time tourists will be able to do water sports and mountain biking. Nothing could be further from the image most people have of Saudi Arabia than a winter wonderland. And yet the country is building just that within the mountains of Neom, its €461 billion ($500 billion) "city of the future."
This new urban project is being built in the northwestern region of the country, in the province of Tabuk. It will host an otherworldly ski resort called Trojena, featuring a mix of stunning real and virtual architecture, a man-made lake and breathtaking scenery. The idea of skiing the slopes of Saudi Arabia's Neom sounds ridiculous, and yet Clark Williams, who manages Marketing and Communications for Neom, says it's easier than you might think. “People go like, wait a minute, is it snowing in Saudi Arabia?” Williams says. "The truth is, we only need -3 degrees Celsius to make snow on Neom, and we can do that for three months of the year."
In the mountains near Neom, the temperature naturally drops below 0 degrees in winter. With sustainable tourism in mind, Trojan's builders say they are focusing on minimizing water use and maximizing water recovery when making snow. “In our snowmaking, we're going to use as many sustainable resources as possible, whether it's solar power or wind power,” explains Williams. "We will also use water from our desalination plant, which is a last resort and we are trying to collect as much water from the (snow) melt as possible." That water would be recirculated back into the system that creates the powder for the resort's slopes, according to Williams.
While winter offers the opportunity to ski the 36-kilometer slopes of Troyena, people will be able to enjoy the man-made lake and practice all kinds of water sports there, as well as mountain biking, during the rest of the year. In the summer, when the Gulf gets really hot, locals will be able to cool off in Trojena, where the average temperature is about 10 degrees lower than in other Saudi cities and there is no humidity.
Trojan is only one of four main parts of Neom. It is also expected to feature the luxury Red Sea island of Sindalah – the first destination to open in 2024 – OXAGON, a futuristic, floating industrial metropolis and THE LINE, a 170-kilometre-long city that would eventually house up to 9 million residents.
"Neom is one of the megaprojects announced as part of the Saudi Crown Prince's vision for 2030," says Niall Gibbons, Neom's Head of Tourism. "It is the size of Belgium and will welcome approximately 3.5 million tourists by 2030." Initially, Neom will focus on local tourism and later expand to international visitors, with 60 percent of people coming from outside Saudi Arabia by 2030, according to Gibbons.
Neom plans to be 100 percent powered by clean energy and reserve 95 percent of its territory for nature. Reintroduction projects in the area have already begun, Gibbons says, with oryx and wild ostriches reintroduced into the desert and "giving birth to their first babies this year."
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