Saudi Arabia Wants Tourists. It Didn’t Expect Christians.
HAQL, Saudi Arabia — The caravan of five Toyota Land Cruisers raced across Saudi Arabia’s rocky desert, weaving onto a highway so new it was not on the map. At the cleft of sea that splits the kingdom from Egypt, they stopped on a barren beach. Fifteen tourists spilled out and gathered around Joel Richardson, a Kansas preacher.
These were not the visitors Saudi officials expected when they opened the country’s borders to leisure tourists in 2019, seeking to diversify the oil-dependent economy and present a new face to the world. First would come the adventurers, they thought — seasoned travelers searching for an unusual destination — and then the luxury market, with yacht owners flocking to resorts that the government is building on the Red Sea coast.
For decades, nearly all the tourists who entered Saudi Arabia were pilgrims going to Mecca, the birthplace of Islam. Openly practicing other religions was effectively forbidden. Synthetic Christmas trees were smuggled in and sold as contraband. People accused of “witchcraft” were executed. Since then, Prince Mohammed has defied attempts to isolate him, deploying Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth in new ways to cement the country’s influence, including this month’s surprise deal between a Saudi-backed golf league and the PGA Tour.
There is also a more subtle incentive. Saudis have long been portrayed in North America and Europe through tropes that brand them as backward and barbaric. They view tourism as a way to redefine the narrative and showcase their culture: its hospitality, its generosity, its spiced coffee and deep-fried sweets.
Like most similar journeys, Richardson’s tour — costing $5,199 per person — covered an area that Prince Mohammed chose for a science fiction-inspired mega-project, Neom, where he plans to build a linear metropolis composed entirely of two parallel skyscrapers.“I wanted to see it in its pristine nature,” said Michael Marks, 52, the pharmacist from Colorado, who accelerated his plan to visit because of the project.
Nevertheless, his ideas — initially on the fringe of evangelical beliefs — spread. Several years ago, Ryan Mauro, a self-described security analyst and Fox News commentator, narrated a popular YouTube video, “Finding the Mountain of Moses,” in which he said: “The Saudis have been hiding the evidence of the Exodus.”
He became fascinated by end-times prophesies, and in two books published more than a decade ago, argued that the Antichrist will be Muslim, describing Islam as a “totalitarian ideology” with “satanic origins.”
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