Integrated Regional Development Planning for Tourism Megaprojects in Saudi Arabia: Coordinating Infrastructure, Utilities, Stakeholders and Project Delivery to Advance Vision 2030

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@article{1723402,
      author = {Waqas Mohammad},
      title = {Integrated Regional Development Planning for Tourism Megaprojects in Saudi Arabia: Coordinating Infrastructure, Utilities, Stakeholders and Project Delivery to Advance Vision 2030},
      journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
      year = {2026},
      volume = {10},
      number = {3},
      pages = {2697-2709},
      issn = {2456-8880},
      url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1723402.pdf},
      abstract = {Saudi Arabia's tourism megaprojects are intended to do more than create isolated visitor destinations. They are expected to reshape regional economies, extend infrastructure networks, protect sensitive landscapes and heritage, mobilise private investment, and generate employment consistent with Vision 2030. These ambitions create a planning problem that is regional rather than site bounded: airports, roads, water, energy, cooling, waste systems, digital networks, housing, logistics and environmental limits interact across multiple projects and jurisdictions. This review synthesises thirty DOI-verified studies published from 2020 to 2025 to examine how those interdependencies can be governed and delivered. A structured critical integrative review was used to connect Saudi tourism and urban-development evidence with transferable research on megaproject governance, stakeholder coordination, project controls and delivery models. The synthesis identifies four recurring weaknesses: planning packages that optimise local assets without testing regional capacity, late resolution of utility and interface dependencies, fragmented decision rights among public and private actors, and project controls that measure package progress more readily than regional benefit. In response, the paper proposes an integrated regional development planning framework built around common demand assumptions, carrying-capacity envelopes, corridor and utility strategies, explicit interface ownership, lifecycle stage gates, shared data and benefit indicators. The framework shifts the unit of planning from the individual megaproject to the connected destination region.},
      keywords = {Saudi Arabia; Vision 2030; tourism megaprojects; regional development; infrastructure planning; utilities; stakeholder governance; project delivery; interface management; sustainable tourism},
      month = {September},
  }