Saudi Arabia has permanently suspended TROJENA — the ski resort in the mountains of Tabuk that was to be the centerpiece of the NEOM megaproject and host the 2029 Asian Winter Games — in a decision that reveals the size of the gap between the mega-ambitions of Vision 2030 and the budgetary, technical, and physical reality of building a ski resort in the middle of the Arabian desert at forty-four degrees north latitude.

TROJENA was the most daring promise of a project that was already itself a daring promise. In the mountains of Tabuk, northwest of Saudi Arabia, where temperatures reach zero degrees in winter and occasional snowfalls have naturally occurred, NEOM planned to build a mountain resort with ski slopes, an artificial freshwater lake, ultra-luxury hotels, cable cars, and facilities for the 2029 Asian Winter Games.

The renderings were spectacular: organic structures embedded in the rock, infinity pools overlooking the Red Sea, cable car cabins over granite valleys. The estimated cost ranged between 4 and 7 billion dollars just for TROJENA — within a NEOM that promised to consume 500 billion dollars in total by 2030.

The Asian Olympic Committee elected TROJENA as the host of the 2029 Asian Winter Games in 2022, a decision that already generated skepticism at the time. Never in the history of the Asian Games had a host been chosen without a single existing ski slope at the location.

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