Red Sea Resort Tops Forbes New Hotel List

The Red Sea EDITION has been named the best new hotel in the world for 2025 by Forbes Travel Guide after a reader vote. The Saudi Arabian resort beat shortlisted properties including Orient Express La Minerva in Rome and Waldorf Astoria New York. Finalists were selected by an editorial committee, with the winner decided through an online survey.

The hotel is located on Shura Island, the central hub of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea tourism project announced in 2017. It was one of three properties to open there last year, alongside InterContinental and SLS. Elsewhere in the development, Six Senses Southern Dunes and Nujuma, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve, are already receiving guests.

The 240-room resort is part of Marriott’s EDITION brand and draws on the surrounding landscape in its design, using coral stone floors and muted, earthy tones. Rooms face either the Red Sea or the 18-hole Shura Links golf course. Guests have access to a spa with an infrared sauna and snow shower, plus four restaurants, with another set to open.

For holidaymakers, the award highlights a destination that until recently was barely on the radar. The Red Sea development currently includes nine operating resorts, with plans for 50 hotels by 2030 across 22 islands and six mainland sites. As more properties open, visitors will have a broader choice of price points, brands and styles of stay within the same coastal region.

ADRENA, an adventure and entertainment district near Shura Island, is scheduled to open in March, offering watersports and land activities including a surf pool and wakeboarding lake. The Forbes recognition is less about prestige and more about visibility: it signals that the Red Sea coast is shifting from an ambitious plan into a functioning holiday option that travellers can now realistically consider.