Aradhana Khowala
Saudi Arabia's NEOM project team announced on Wednesday the appointment of Aradhana Khowala as the executive director of the tourism sector in the multi-hundred billion-dollar city.
Aradhana Khowala’s impressively long list of achievements makes her the ideal individual for the position. Her career started after she attended Cornell University in New York, and graduated from Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland with an MBA.
In 2006, the tourism and travel expert founded APTAMIND Group, a travel advisory and luxury investment group based in London, and became the CEO of her own company. The establishment provides consolatory advice to country leaders, governments, and businessmen and women interested in developing tourism industries based on the reception and hosting of foreigners.
The list doesn’t stop there, as she is also a published author and has contributed over the years to more than 10 media outlets, including the World Tourism Forum Lucerne and Hotels Magazine. The tourism professional is a keynote speaker as well, and a lecturer at different universities.
Khowala’s 17+ years of experience in over 60 countries led her to be an international authority on all things tourism, travel, and hospitality, and the team behind NEOM is ecstatic to have her. Nazmi Al Nasr, Engineer and Chief Executive Officer of the NEOM Project, said that they are looking forward to working with Aradhana Khowala towards making the futuristic city a world-class destination for tourism.
If you’re not familiar with NEOM, it’s one of the Vision 2030 ambitious projects. It aims to transform KSA into a leading global model in various aspects of life. The area is located north west of the Kingdom, covering an area of 26,500 km2, and will have full dependence on alternative energy.
The Saudi mega city will focus on 9 specialized investment sectors targeting the future of human civilization, namely the future of energy and water, mobility, biotechnology, food, technical and digital sciences, advanced manufacturing, entertainment, media, and production, in order to stimulate growth and economic diversification, enable manufacturing processes, and innovate and move the local industry on a global level.
Notably one of the best features of the project area is the strategic location that allows it to be a hub connecting the three continents, Asia, Europe and Africa. 70% of the world's population will have access to the site within a maximum of 8 hours, allowing the world's best education, technology, research, living and work standards to all be gathered in one accessible place.
The first phase of the NEOM project is to be completed in 2025.
