I stayed in the same Saudi resort as Boris and Carrie – where rooms cost £1,500 a night

Telegraph

24-02-2025

What do Cristiano Ronaldo and Boris Johnson have in common? The answer is that they've been pictured on social media living it up at Saudi Arabia's most exclusive tourism resort, the St Regis Red Sea.
With its plush water bungalows and eye-watering prices (rooms start at around £1,500 per night, reaching up to £14,000 for the best suites), the St Regis might look like any other ultra-high-end resort that you would find in Maldives or Mauritius. But that's before you get to its intriguing backstory.
In fact, the St Regis is the pet project of Saudi Arabia's all-powerful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has made the five-star resort central to his unlikely pitch to turn one of the world's most repressive countries into one of the hottest tourism destinations on earth.
Some tourism experts have scoffed at Saudi Arabia's targets of bringing in 70 million international visitors a year by 2030 (for comparison, Dubai currently attracts just over 17 million per year), but there's no denying that the St Regis Red Sea is incredibly impressive – as the Instagram photos from Carrie Johnson will testify.
Situated on a private island in the heart of the Al Wajh Lagoon, the resort is accessible only by seaplane or speedboat. Arguably it even has its own airport, given that Saudi Arabia has opened the new Red Sea International Airport in order to bring in visitors from its major cities, as well as from Dubai in the UAE.
Of course, such largesse is to be expected when you're backed by one of the world's most powerful men, who has pledged to invest $800 billion of Saudi oil money into tourism projects. According to some reports, the Red Sea projects have already been allocated some $50 billion – more than 30 times the budget of Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai.
Is it destined to become the next A-lister hotspot? Given the amount of high-profile boxing events currently taking place in Saudi Arabia, I'd wager it's only a matter of time before we see Anthony Joshua or Tyson Fury sunning themselves by their palatial private villa. Not least as the Saudi monarchy is prone to splashing the cash on VIP visitors.
Still, conversations with insiders in Saudi Arabia suggest that the resort's primary focus – at least for now – is to serve high-net-worth guests from elsewhere in the Gulf, who are far less likely than westerners to have any niggles about holidaying in the strict Islamic kingdom.
What particular concerns might they have in mind? While it's true that Saudi Arabia doesn't have the most glistening reputation in the West, there's no denying it has made some big strides over the past ten years or so. Oppressive dress codes have been hugely relaxed, and women are now free to drive and work.
As someone who has visited twice in the past year, I can testify that it feels as safe and relaxed as Qatar or Abu Dhabi. That isn't to give Saudi Arabia a pass on its wider human rights record, but it does answer some of the more alarmist questions around safety. You may also get to see some genuinely stunning sights, like the sublime At-Turaif heritage site in Riyadh.
Of course, there is one big exception: alcohol. Saudi Arabia is still one of only nine countries on earth which maintain an absolute ban on alcohol, with most of the others (Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya) having zero pretense about becoming a big tourist destination. And Saudi's leadership has held the line on this one, hence the recent pronouncement that football fans can expect a dry World Cup in 2034.
There had been rumours that the Red Sea resorts (which include the St Regis, as well as the Ritz Carlton's Nujuma) might be granted an exception, in a similar style to the Maldives (which bans booze on its main islands, but allows it in private resorts). But when I asked the St Regis media team last year, the suggestion was immediately shot down.
It might not be a problem for health fanatics like Cristiano Ronaldo, but it does make it a tough sell for the average Western honeymooner. Indeed, given Boris Johnson's well-known penchant for red wine, I do hope our former prime minister was fully briefed on the rules before his visit, or it could have been a rather grumpy few days.
Will his visit raise eyebrows amongst parts of his political fanbase? These days, I think even the blue-rinse brigade are pragmatic about countries like Saudi Arabia, which is now perhaps best known as one of Donald Trump's favourite partners.
If there's any resistance, I suspect it may come from more discerning quarters who may just find the idea of our former prime minister jetting off to a five-star resort backed by an oil-rich millennial dauphin to be just a tad gauche.