The Gulf Kingdom has just announced that it will issue tourist visas. These few arguments will encourage you to book your tickets. Or to find another destination.
Subscribers article
Hpolitical, or aesthetic, your arguments and counter-arguments for an evening debate.
FOR
The hedonistic argument
A kingdom for you alone. It's the exhilarating sensation you will experience when you arrive in Saudi Arabia. Its territory is vast: 2.15 million km², the equivalent of the surface area of France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium and of Switzerland united. But above all, the country is for the moment almost virgin of tourists. No queues at the National Museum of Riyadh, no 4 × 4 traffic jam on the dunes of Rub Al-Khâli, the "empty Quarter", the mythical desert of south-eastern Arabia. Luxury, calm and solemnity.
The political argument
Long impenetrable, clinging to Wahhabi rigorism, Saudi Arabia has decided to rub the Western devils. Why not encourage it? It is understood that the kingdom, which Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Salman, known as MBS, has undertaken to modernize, is still far from having completed its transformation. Outside the affluent neighborhoods of Riyadh and Jeddah, sexual segregation remains in effect. Exempt from the port of the abaya, the foreigners will have to dress in a " modest "covered shoulders and knees. But the arrival of tourists could accelerate the transformation of the country.
The aesthetic argument
"We have more to offer the world than oil. " This is the story of Saudis working in tourism. And they are right. Their homeland is full of landscapes, sites and buildings of great beauty. Let's move on to the Kingdom Tower, nicknamed the "bottle opener", pretentious skyscraper, destined to become the emblem of Riyadh. The wonders of the Kingdom are elsewhere: in Al-Ula, in the north-west, an ancient necropolis whose development is co-piloted by France; at Taif, not far from Mecca, the summer resort of the princes, with a temperate climate; and on the myriad islands still deserts of the Red Sea, cocktail of fine sand and emerald water.
AGAINST
The hedonistic counter-argument
