The Saudi Red Sea Authority (SRSA) has launched a campaign titled “More Than a Sea”, which revolves around four main pillars of SRSA’s roles: regulations, sustainability, attracting investments, and promoting tourism experiences in the Red Sea, to highlight its contributions toward building a thriving coastal tourism sector. The campaign, rooted in SRSA’s duties, focuses on its regulatory role in setting policies, strategies, plans, programs, and initiatives necessary for regulating navigational and marine tourism activities, issuing licenses and permits, and preparing the infrastructure for these activities. Additionally, SRSA has issued 7 regulations in collaboration with the relevant entities to regulate coastal tourism activities in Saudi Arabia.
As More Than a Sea also addresses one of SRSA’s roles of attracting investment in the Red Sea, which offers a promising investment environment in the region with its unique features, such as a population of around 7 million people supporting coastal tourism along an extensive 1,800 km coastline, diverse landscapes, climates, cultures, heritage, valuable marine treasures, charming nature, creating an astonishing environment for enthusiasts and practitioners. While the campaign also highlights SRSA’s efforts to promote a variety of coastal tourism activities such as cruise ships, yachts, diving, snorkeling, recreational fishing, recreational boats, and beach activities, along with encouraging tourists and visitors to explore and live a unique coastal experience in the Red Sea.
When it comes to sustainability, More Than a Sea emphasizes SRSA’s objectives toward environmental protection, by leading the efforts with relevant entities from the public and private sectors to develop a mechanism to ensure protection of marine environment, fostering the growth of the blue economy, preserving natural assets and pristine resources in the Red Sea, as well as contributing to the production of nautical maps that define safe routes and protect coral reefs, along with managing marine waste, installing mooring buoys, and establishing weather monitoring stations. The Red Sea coast features over 150 beaches, over 1,000 islands, and 130 cultural, historical, and biological assets. It is rich in natural beauty, enchanting treasures and wonders, over 20 blue holes, over 500 diving sites, and diverse culture and heritage, including traditions, customs, architecture, clothing, and over 50 traditional dishes. In line with Saudi Vision 2030’s objectives to diversify income sources, SRSA’s goals for the coastal tourism sector is to contribute 85 billion SAR to the GDP by 2030, increase spending to reach 123 billion SAR and create 210,000 jobs during the same period, thereby diversifying Saudi Arabia’s non-oil income sources.
