Riyadh: An emerging city with a ten-year development plan on the verge

Visiting Riyadh for the first time was an eye-opening experience and a great opportunity to see the city before its full development plan unfolds. Saudi Arabia started opening up to international visitors in 2019 and, since then, the main cities with commercial activity have started seeing an expansive development supported by investments, new construction projects, increased job vacancies and a more relaxed frameworks of guidelines, making it all easier both for female visitors and locals. Visa requirements are still in place, yet lots of other paperwork has been waived making planning much easier and preparation tells stressful.
On my recent trip to Jeddah and Riyadh I noticed that female locals do now often wear suits in business meetings or regular outfits instead of their traditional abayas while their head remains uncovered as the rules have softened and society allows female locals to now move more freely. Of course, as expected from any country with deeply rooted traditions, many female locals do still choose to wear their abayas; whether that’s out of habit or respect, it is an undoubtedly elegant garment to wear. For our meetings, we did also choose to wear abayas out of respect to the female locals and must admit it felt really nice to wear such a soft, stylish item on top of our regular western outfits.
Riyadh is a city that will see lots of change in the next ten years and government seeks ways to attract talent in various sectors, mainly Construction, Real Estate, Finance and Energy. At the moment, it feels like the city runs in two different levels of pace. On the one hand you have the edgy architectural miracles of the Kingdom Centre, which usually refer to Hotels or Corporate buildings, and on the other hand you have residential areas and smaller shopping areas that are a print-screen of an old era waiting to be refreshed and modernised. The least developed areas exhale mystery and echo Arabian whispers, inviting you to explore them and get a taste of something that may not exist there in the next few years. Generally, although most of the city life takes place indoors, there are nice places to visit when weather permits some outdoor activity.
There is complete absence of alcohol, of course, same as in all other Saudi Arabian countries, yet the tasty juices are generously offered from a.m. to p.m. To some, this could be a discouraging factor when deciding on a holiday destination, however, when you are there -and if alcohol is not too much of a priority for you in general- you do forget about it. The food offering comes into great variety, especially in hotel buffets that are so large and so meticulously designed that fairly deserve your photo clicks. I was impressed by the colourful palettes of the buffet settings I saw in the luxury hotel I stayed at, though we know this kind of buffet servings are not in fashion in Western hospitality anymore plus, when the sustainability and food waste aspects kick in then, one could feel slightly guilty at their sight.
If you do get the opportunity to visit Riyadh before the city sees its complete make over, I would encourage you to do so. It is always culturally interesting to experience a place before it gets transformed into something that may feel less authentic in the future, and we do unfortunately know that the commercialisation standards that tend to be applied across the board in architecture, landscaping and development in many places in the Middle East could potentially make Riyadh the new Doha.