INTEGRATED PROGRAMME GOVERNANCE FOR TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA UNDER VISION 2030

Abstract

The expansion of tourism in Saudi Arabia, under the Vision 2030 initiative, covers a wide variety of areas such as destination development, transport, utilities, heritage conservation, digital systems, the public realm, hospitality capacity and regional economic policy as part of a wider programme of transformation. Given the scale of this project, a governance problem emerges that cannot be resolved by simply controlling each individual project. This review analyses how integrated programme governance can link the delivery of tourism infrastructure with regional development outcomes. In order to achieve this a structured critical integrative review of 30 peer-reviewed studies verified by the DOI was conducted between 2020 and 2025, the studies covering the fields of tourism development, urban and regional planning, megaproject governance, stakeholder management, construction delivery, sustainability and digital coordination. The synthesis identifies six interdependent governance requirements: strategic portfolio alignment, integration of regional infrastructure and utilities, explicit decision rights, interface and change control, assurance of sustainability and heritage, and benefits-led performance management. It is possible for optimisation at the project level to take place even if the overall programme is performing poorly provided that the shared dependencies and cumulative pressures are only dealt with at a late stage.