Saudi Arabia seeks investors for $135m Ferris wheel in Medina

• Kingdom pushes for private capital
• Focus on pilgrims and domestic travel
• Wants attractions beyond holy sites

Saudi Arabia is seeking private investors for a proposed giant Ferris wheel in Medina, as the kingdom increases its reliance on private capital and sharpens its focus on attractions for pilgrims and domestic travellers.

The SAR511 million ($135 million) Hijaz Eye, as it is called in the government’s Invest Saudi platform – a database of 2,200 state investment opportunities – is to be built on a 33,700 square metre plot, roughly equal to five football fields. The tender prospectus did not disclose the wheel’s height.

The pitch to investors says it is “the best destination to get a bird’s eye view of the city”.

It also frames the project as one for the local tourist market, saying the Eye will “enrich the experience of pilgrims” and address a “growing need to increase cultural communication among pilgrims”.

Invest Saudi says the Ferris wheel could repay investors in seven years.

It would not be the first large Ferris wheel in the region. The UAE has Ain Dubai, which has been plagued with issues since it briefly opened in October 2021. It went on to shut and reopen several times, and is closed at the time of writing.

Domestic and religious tourism sit at the core of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 strategy. With the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages to Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, the kingdom attracts millions of religious tourists each year.

In 2025, 14 million visitors came from overseas to Saudi Arabia for religious purposes, Ministry of Tourism data shows – twice the number who came for leisure and seven times those who arrived for business.

About 14 million domestic tourists travelled for religious purposes, with 6.5 million visiting Medina.

At the Future Hospitality Summit investment forum in Riyadh last month, Mahmoud Abdulhadi, Saudi deputy tourism minister for destination enablement, said visits grew by 8 percent year on year in the first three months of 2026, “mainly driven by strong domestic demand” and despite the regional conflict.

Encouraging pilgrims to venture beyond holy sites is a push known in the industry as “Umrah plus”.

At the same investment forum, Amin Ismail, managing director of investment advisory Certares, suggested more was needed to extend pilgrims’ stay: “A lot can be done in terms of Umrah and Hajj plus.”

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“I’m a believer that Mecca and Medina are great base businesses, but we’ve never tapped into them,” Hamza Farooqui, founder and CEO of investment firm Millat Group, said. “People go there, pray and leave. No one has taken the time to improve the experiential [parts] of these cities. Today’s traveller wants a sense of experience.”

Riyadh’s approach to funding its large-scale projects is shifting. The Public Investment Fund, which oversees $1 trillion in assets and has driven most of Vision 2030’s development spending, approved a five-year strategy in April organising investments into three portfolios.

Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan also announced a push to bring in more private and foreign capital, rather than funding large projects alone. The fund’s chairman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, signed off on the plan, which set out six priority sectors, including tourism and urban development.

That repositioning follows a spate of cost overruns and delays across the giga-projects portfolio, with Neom among the highest-profile casualties of the recalibration.