Move over, Dubai: The new tourist megacities coming soon

In Julian Barnes’s satirical 1998 novel, England, England, a tycoon takes over the Isle of Wight in order to turn it into a giant theme park showcasing English history – with a fake parliament, fake London fog and fake Stonehenge. Intended to offer visitors the best elements of an idealised England – even Manchester United move there (this was the ’90s, after all) – the cartoonish story is, among other things, a slick if predictable take-down of the heritage industry.

Cut to 2025 and the built-from-scratch destination is all the rage. It is no surprise the Chinese were pioneers. Two decades ago, Shanghai’s One City, Nine Towns project captured headlines with photographs of twee-looking London-themed Thames Town and Bauhaus-influenced Anting German Town (designed by the Frankfurt-based firm Albert Speer + Partner).

Other towns took inspiration, with varying degrees of success, from Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Dutch townscapes. Plagiarising foreign kitsch is still big in China, but next year will see the opening of Parallel World Resort in Hangzhou, a culture and tourism complex that aims to “combine historical Song Dynasty charm with futuristic sci-fi elements”.

It sounds like time is being bent here. Then again, some have said exploring Chongqing, only founded as a municipality in 1997 and now the world’s most populous urban area and an emerging tourism hotspot, looks and feels like being in the film Inception.

Smart cities by the sea

Megacity schemes are afoot all over the world, and while tourism is not always the sole purpose, it is often the lead concept. Egypt is building a $322 million “megacity” called New Alamein on its Mediterranean coast. Inaugurated by president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2018, the project will combine high-rise residential and office buildings, as many as 30,000 hotel rooms, three universities and a presidential palace.

Sharm El-Sheik, which draws more than 15 million visitors per year, is a steady hard-currency earner for the struggling Egyptian economy. The country seeks to offer something new that can compete with Mediterranean resorts in Spain, Italy and, in particular, Turkey. The original city of El Alamein, a few miles away, is best known for two pivotal Second World War battles; military cemeteries attract small numbers of veterans and history tourists, the beaches are popular with middle-class Egyptians and there is already a small international airport.

Egypt is also developing a project called Marassi Red Sea, with funding from the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The latter, relatively new to tourism but committed to investing more than $12 billion in the sector, has several massive tourism cities underway as part of its wide-reaching Vision 2030 national diversification plan – that is, preparing for when the oil runs out.

Diriyah, a UNESCO site considered the “home” of the ruling royal family, the House of Saud, will combine heritage tourism – the new city is 100 per cent walkable – with lavish hotels and global cuisine. The Red Sea/AMAALA project, which opened its first resort in 2023, targets 50 resorts by 2030.

The Neom development, close to the border with Jordan, is planned as a cruise terminal, marina and skyscraper city, with high-speed rail connections and a 45,000-seat football stadium – though its centrepiece, a linear car-free smart city called The Line, has been stymied by cost overruns and delays.

Luxury from scratch

Nations that don’t have the deep pockets of the Saudis are getting in on the act. Albania hopes to turn Sazan Island into a luxury Mediterranean resort, with funding from the Trump family, once the unexploded ordnance from its time as a military base is removed. Montenegro’s Lustica Bay is attracting wealthy golf tourists and tax-shy expats, while serving as a showcase to attract Gulf money for further tourism-centred projects on the Mediterranean coast.

Greece, already one of the world’s most visited tourism destinations, is developing The Ellinikon near Athens, attracting international finance to build luxury homes, hotels, a casino, marina, shops, offices and Greece’s tallest buildings.

Uzbekistan has two major schemes, Silk Road Samarkand and Eternal Bukhara. They plan to tap into the fast-growing market for Central Asia/Silk Road holidays and take the focus away from the tourism-threatened walled old cities and photogenic UNESCO sites, while ratcheting up the offer on gastronomy, luxury accommodation, a water-based theme park (probably a welcome addition for family groups in these desert regions), spas and, even, health tourism. Dubai has a whole airport-centred mega project, Al Maktoum, based on medical tourism.

The lure of the ‘global tourism city’

Prof J Andres Coca Stefaniak, professor of tourism and sustainability at the University of Greenwich and co-chief editor of the International Journal of Tourism Cities, sees the mega-developments as opportunities to meld airports, attractions, and urban life into a seamless travel experience.

“Global tourism cities are not just big attractors for urban tourism. They are also often major transport hubs with globally competitive airports and technologically advanced sustainable transport infrastructure. Their sustainability credentials make them attractive to new generations of visitors for whom sustainability is a key value.”

Young travellers, he says, want their holidays to deliver a wide range of experiences, from digital detoxes to adventures. “Global tourism cities can offer the full spectrum of visitor experiences, while offering a large variety of hospitality, culture, events and heritage with very diverse resident communities.”

Holidays in the uncanny valley

The advantages of megacities are clear. They offer governments a means to develop beaches, hotels and other facilities close to a dedicated airport. They allow easier management of density and traffic in a way that is difficult and sometimes impossible in a historic city. They are also a way for illiberal countries like Saudi Arabia to host Western style tourism, providing resorts that allow, say, alcoholic drinks – the ban in tourist zones was lifted in May – and semi-nude bathing.

A big question – the marble elephant in the six-star room, if you like – is authenticity. Can a newly built tourism-focused city offer the depth of experiences of a genuine global city such as London or Paris? Given that they target an international clientele, including digital nomads and expats, won’t the cuisine, craft and culture be utterly non-local. Will the hotel decor be generic? Can you manufacture heritage or even generate a sense of belonging when a place is only a few years old?

Perhaps I am being falsely nostalgic. In some ways, the tourism megacity is the latest stage of an evolution that began with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, continued with early theme parks like Denmark’s Bakken and Tivoli Gardens, led to Blackpool, Disneyland and Sun City, and continues today with the projected Universal United Kingdom resort near Bedford. Leisure has always taken place in designed environments.

The main difference with the newest tourism cities is one of scale. Saudi Arabia calls its schemes “giga projects”, which has echoes of EV battery factories as well as the massive data centres where the net’s servers feed our addiction. This is fitting, as the cities of the future are being built for Gen Z, as well as the Alphas and coming Betas, the next ones along in the Brave New World-inflected nomenclature.

Raised in a world in which travel is undertaken permanently or at least partly online, and in which sights are ticked off (as well as TikToked out) like a stage in a video game, the all-blinging, all-singing and (probably) all-swinging smart resort cities of the future will be very close to their digital lives indeed.

The Telegraph, London