This luxury artificial island project should be built this year.
Megalomania. The island of Sindalah is to extend over 840,000 square meters and is to house numerous infrastructures, such as a golf course, several luxury hotels, a marina, a wellness center or a shopping center, but also a sports complex with a training academy, an Olympic swimming pool, a spa and sports fields.
Launched in 2017 by Mohammed ben Salman (MBS), Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and called NEOM, the pharaonic luxury project including the famous island of Sindalah, should see the light of day in 2024 by welcoming its first tourists, where NEOM should really open its doors in 2028. NEOM is the contraction of Neo (“new” in Greek) and Mustaqbal (“future” in Arabic) and brings together several real estate projects in the northwest of the country, including a ski resort, a complex industrial, a building city 170 kilometers long and… Sindalah, a futuristic luxury island for tourists.
According to the project sold by the Saudis, several activities will be offered to tourists staying on this artificial island, such as kayaking, kitesurfing, water skiing or even scuba diving with direct access to the Red Sea. Total cost of the project: some £625 million – or nearly €730 million. In a press release on the Saudi Arabia project website, Sindalah is “NEOM’s first luxury island destination and one of the most important projects supporting Saudi Arabia’s national tourism strategy.”
“Sindalah will be NEOM’s first luxury island destination and yacht club, providing a panoramic gateway to the Red Sea, which will become the most exciting and attractive tourist destination in the region. It will be a destination where travelers will be able to discover the true beauty of NEOM and Saudi Arabia, above and below the water, making Sindalah the future of luxury travel”, underlines for his part Mohammed bin Salman, also president of board of directors of the NEOM company.
The other particularity of Sindalah is that the island is designed without roads or cars: the aim is to have all amenities within a five-minute walk. A “zero carbon” island, illustrating an ecological desire. Hard to believe and yet, respect for the environment is praised by the initiators of the project. But can building a megalopolis in the middle of the Saudi desert and an artificial island – in a project that includes several, be ecological? It is on this promise that the creators of NEOM are surfing who, according to these principles, have been joined by the French energy giant EDF, sparking an inevitable outcry from the company’s employees, as revealed the Radio France investigation unit in an investigation published on March 1.