Alvarez & Manzel executive highlights how data laws can effect objectives of the ‘smart destination’

Alvarez & Manzel executive highlights how data laws can effect objectives of the ‘smart destination’

Sooho Choi, Managing Director at Alvarez & Manzel outlines how rigid data protection laws could impact the pursuit of ‘smart destinations’. 

When it comes to luxury travel, service providers rely on technology to store and act upon personal data to provide the outstanding experience their customers expect. A challenge for the industry in the Middle East lies in offering the high-level of service guests are used to elsewhere in the world while complying with laws that can prevent data crossing borders and require it to be localized.

As Saudi Arabia works to build an economy based on technology and knowledge as laid out in its Vision 2030, managed services such as cloud computing, data centers and IoT will be central to these efforts. Private cloud facilities will also be required for mega projects with tourism and leisure elements such as Neom, Qiddiya, the Red Sea Project and Amaala. Certainly for Neom there are already plans to build three hyperscale data centers.

Whether exemptions will be made for these projects to help tourism providers get around data laws remains to be seen. A precedent exists