The Red Sea Project, PIF, KSA

Impact

The insight and output from Pragma’s work has informed the development of the project, where construction began in 2019 and is due to be completed by 2030.

About the Brand

The developer behind the Red Sea Project is Red Sea Global, which was founded in 2017 and is owned by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. Red Sea Global is chaired by HRH Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud and is a cornerstone of Saudi Vision 2030, which helping to transform the nation.

PIF is developing the Red Sea Project as a world-leading holiday resort on Saudi Arabia’s west coast, with a strong focus on luxury tourism and sustainability.

The Task

Pragma was instructed, alongside global design practice WATG, to deliver a retail, dining and entertainment strategy for what will be a leading pillar in Saudi Arabia’s expansion of its tourism sector.

Key to Pragma’s involvement was identifying likely customer segments, the most pertinent global consumer trends, potential market competition and learnings from benchmark developments. From here, a clearly defined retail proposition was provided, along with recommended space guidelines and zoning strategy across the site’s many islands. Pragma’s outputs were to be incorporated into the client’s financial model, to ensure the success of retail provision at the site

What we did

Pragma worked closely with the PIF and WATG teams to:

• Define the key market forces that would have implications for the Red Sea Project, including tourist flows, expenditure and seasonality, but also consumer trends such as showrooming and digital immersion
• Identify gaps in existing and planned competitive provision from across the world, considering locations such as the Maldives, to inform the ideal retail, dining and entertainment proposition for the Red Sea Project
• Develop learnings from a range of global luxury holiday destination benchmarks, including consideration of zoning, configuration and consumer proposition, as well as more quantitative elements, such as tenant mix
• Segment the addressable audience, considering all potential accommodation options and visitor profiles – including group type, affluence, age and attitudes – to identify the best strategic approach for attracting them to the retail, dining and entertainment offer at the Red Sea Project
• Create an evidence-base for the target commercial proposition and user experience to inform the masterplan and provide high-level guidelines on the theming and characteristics of retail, dining and entertainment facilities
• Develop a detailed space supportable model to advise on the optimum commercial space for the site, with financial assumptions and target trading performance – to be inputs for the client’s financial model
• Evaluate potential architectural plans for the site, to help refine the sizing, distribution and adjacencies of uses, units and experiences