The $750m Qiddiya Water Theme Park will be a year-round immersive family entertainment destination. Photo: QIC
The $750m Qiddiya Water Theme Park will be a year-round immersive family entertainment destination. Photo: QIC
The $750m Qiddiya Water Theme Park will be a year-round immersive family entertainment destination. Photo: QIC
The $750m Qiddiya Water Theme Park will be a year-round immersive family entertainment destination. Photo: QIC

Business

Travel and Tourism

Saudi Arabia awards $750m contract for construction of region's biggest water theme park

The park, being built over 25.2 hectares of land at Qiddiya, will be home to 22 rides and attractions

Sarmad Khan
Sarmad Khan

February 24, 2022

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Qiddiya Investment Company, the developer of multibillion-dollar entertainment destinations in Riyadh, awarded a contract worth 2.8 billion Saudi riyals ($750 million) for the construction of the kingdom’s first and the region’s largest water theme park.

The contract was awarded to a joint venture of Alec Saudi Arabia Engineering and Contracting and El Seif Engineering Contracting, QIC said.

The park will sit on 22.5 hectares of land and will be home to 22 rides and attractions — including nine that will be world firsts. It will span nine zones, inspired by animals that inhabit the areas around Qiddiya.

“Qiddiya Water Theme Park will be a year-round immersive family entertainment destination, the first of its kind and offering experiences that have never before been offered in Saudi,” said QIC managing director Abdullah Al Dawood.

The theme park, which will also host water sport competitions, is designed to minimise water use through recycling and smart technology in line with QIC’s sustainability goals, the company said.

Some of the rides have been designed to use 75 per cent less water compared with the more conventional offerings at other water parks. The park will capture rainwater and will use it for irrigation at the destination after treatment.

The Discovery Springs land at Six Flags Qiddiya. Courtesy Qiddiya
The Discovery Springs land at Six Flags Qiddiya. Courtesy Qiddiya
Sirocco Tower which is said to be the world's tallest drop-tower ride. Courtesy Qiddiya
Sirocco Tower which is said to be the world's tallest drop-tower ride. Courtesy Qiddiya
The Steam Town land at Six Flags Qiddiya. Courtesy Qiddiya
The Steam Town land at Six Flags Qiddiya. Courtesy Qiddiya
The Falcon's Flight ride is set to be the fastest in the world, at Six Flags Qiddiya, Saudi Arabia. Courtesy Qiddiya
The Falcon's Flight ride is set to be the fastest in the world, at Six Flags Qiddiya, Saudi Arabia. Courtesy Qiddiya
The entrance to the Six Flags park. Courtesy Qiddiya
The entrance to the Six Flags park. Courtesy Qiddiya
The Twilight Gardens land at Six Flags Qiddiya. Courtesy Qiddiya
The Twilight Gardens land at Six Flags Qiddiya. Courtesy Qiddiya
Falcon's Flight at Six Flags. Courtesy Qiddiya
Falcon's Flight at Six Flags. Courtesy Qiddiya

The Qiddiya project, which is being funded by the Public Investment Fund and the kingdom's government, includes a Six Flags theme park and other entertainment activities. It will also feature a golf course and an arts complex.

It is being built on a 334-square-kilometre site. In December, QIC began the construction of Six Flags Qiddiya after awarding a contract valued at 3.7bn riyals.

Qiddiya, which is being built in the outskirts of the Riyadh, is one of several mega-projects being developed in the kingdom as part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programme, the overarching blueprint to overhaul the kingdom’s economy and reduce its dependence on hydrocarbon revenue.

Qiddiya Water Theme Park will be a year-round immersive family entertainment destination, the first of its kind and offering experiences that have never before been offered in Saudi
Abdullah Al Dawood,
managing director, QIC

Other projects include Neom, a $500bn futuristic business and industrial zone extending into Egypt and Jordan, and the Red Sea tourism project, which includes a nature reserve, coral reefs and heritage sites on about 50 islands.

Tourism is one of the key pillars of Saudi Arabia’s transformation agenda, and the kingdom plans to invest more than $1 trillion in the sector over the next 10 years, Ahmed Al Khateeb, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Tourism and chairman of the Tourism Development Fund, said in October.

The fund aims to hasten the development of the kingdom’s tourism industry through private sector investments.

It has enabled projects with an investment value of around 6bn riyals, including more than 4bn riyals in private-sector investment, which will add about 3,500 hotel rooms and 21,000 jobs over the next three years.

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The major Hashd factions linked to Iran:

Badr Organisation: Seen as the most militarily capable faction in the Hashd. Iraqi Shiite exiles opposed to Saddam Hussein set up the group in Tehran in the early 1980s as the Badr Corps under the supervision of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The militia exalts Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but intermittently cooperated with the US military.

Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigade): Comprised of former members of the officially defunct Mahdi Army, a militia that was commanded by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and fought US and Iraqi government and other forces between 2004 and 2008. As part of a political overhaul aimed as casting Mr Al Sadr as a more nationalist and less sectarian figure, the cleric formed Saraya Al Salam in 2014. The group’s relations with Iran has been volatile.

Kataeb Hezbollah: The group, which is fighting on behalf of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, traces its origins to attacks on US forces in Iraq in 2004 and adopts a tough stance against Washington, calling the United States “the enemy of humanity”.

Asaeb Ahl Al Haq: An offshoot of the Mahdi Army active in Syria. Asaeb Ahl Al Haq’s leader Qais al Khazali was a student of Mr Al Moqtada’s late father Mohammed Sadeq Al Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric who was killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba: Formed in 2013 to fight alongside Mr Al Assad’s loyalists in Syria before joining the Hashd. The group is seen as among the most ideological and sectarian-driven Hashd militias in Syria and is the major recruiter of foreign fighters to Syria.

Saraya Al Khorasani:  The ICRG formed Saraya Al Khorasani in the mid-1990s and the group is seen as the most ideologically attached to Iran among Tehran’s satellites in Iraq.

(Source: The Wilson Centre, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation)

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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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