With the Gulf’s local tourist destinations oversubscribed, our client saw an opportunity and set its sights on acquiring, designing and delivering a new offering in Eritrea’s Dahlak Island.
The case for change
Demand for family, leisure and scuba diving-focused tourism from Saudi Arabia was growing however, access to affordable, local, liberal options were limited, particularly for Saudis.
Our client was not only looking to plug this gap and establish a new tourism hub but they were invested in the idea of establishing an enterprise that delivered economic and social benefits to a community. They sought a solution that would increase employment opportunities and expand the local economy.
Our scope:
- To perform a discovery process to assess the suitability of several target locations in Africa for the tourism destination project
- To explore the social and financial potential of the site, including any peripheral infrastructure required to support the movement, accommodation and leisure activities to be undertaken by tourists
- To identify the target location and outline the scope of the potential project
- To develop a plan to acquire the location and facilitate its transformation into a tourism precinct
What we were up against
Although the project was backed by billions of dollars in private funds, the social and political landscapes of the target locations in Africa proved problematic. The underdeveloped nature of the locations meant that significant investment would need to be made in socialising the project and its opportunities with national, regional and local governments.
In addition, unexpected conflicts between neighbouring Ethiopia, resulted in a prolonged campaign of war and social exclusion, globally referred to as the Ethio-Eritrean conflict. The conflict ultimately precluded the launch of the build phase of the project.
Outcome achieved
Although the Dahlak Island tourism precinct was not realised much of the social, political and financial pre-work was completed, creating the potential to revisit the project at a time in the future:
- The project has been planned and costed with the implementation scope and next steps defined to create the tourism precinct including: an airport, five, four and three-star hotels in Asmara, Massawa, and on Dahlak Island as well as the establishment of a free trade zone within Eritrea
- The Eritrean Government and our client have an established relationship
- Red Sea Airlines (part of the project’s transportation requirements) has been established with flights between locations in Eritrea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt