In the first years of the formation of WebGarden, we’ve worked for the Saudi Aramco oil company. Since then, we’ve been monitoring this special country and looking forward to an opportunity to appear. We know that as a Hungarian company, it is a huge opportunity to enter the market of a country that not many Hungarian companies have entered so far.
In 2019, we were only one week away from boarding a plane and exhibit our SkyDreamCam by WebGarden tourist webcam and WebGarden IT services products at The Hotel Show Saudi Arabia.

However, due to COVID, the exhibition was unfortunately cancelled. But we didn’t give up, we knew the time would come and we would be there!

Saudi Arabia has been quite a closed country at that time, it was very difficult to get into. In 2019, they decided to open their gates to the world and made it possible to travel to the country with an individual tourist visa. Covid has somewhat threw back people’s desire to travel, yet hundreds of thousands of visas have been issued in the first few months.

In the frame of the Vision 2030 Saudi program, they have embarked on huge tourism developments among other things, which is going to strengthen their enterprises, and which is going to result the diversification of oil centric GPD.

We know that WebGarden’s SkyDreamCam tourism webcam, corporate branding and IT services provide added value that can contribute to the success of the Vision 2030 Saudi program.

That’s why we were very happy when the new date for The Hotel Show Saudi was announced again. We’ve bought the tickets happily and rented the stand.

Unfortunately, the trip didn’t go that smooth. Due to the Covid measures, the opaque chaos between the transfers and the last-minute ticket purchase, 2 purchase of plane tickets went to waste and we were able to travel to Riyadh with our 3rd tickets. It was a hair’s breadth to have the trip cancelled (which isn’t the Kingdom of Saudi’s entry rules to blame for, but the lack of information of the airlines transporting there), but we were ready to make one last try.

Eventually, Qatar Airways managed to fly us via Doha at the cost of a small Bucharest detour. In Budapest and Bucharest 5-5 people worked hard at check-in to make sure everything was fine, but at the end, we arrived.

In the recent years, before departure, we’ve always tried to find as much information about the country, the people living there, and the culture, as possible.

By the time of arrival, it became clear that our information so far didn’t really match reality. Friendly, kind, open people were waiting for us in a liveable country. The transportation was easy, too, and the Saudis were very kind and friendly to us.

We arrived at the show with mixed feelings. We had a relatively small stand, we didn’t expect much interest, but we did hope so. However, no one would have thought we would run out of brochures and business cards by the last hour of the exhibition.

People were coming to the stand constantly, they were interested and the feedbacks we’ve received were positive, too. If we are not mistaken, except for us only one Polish and one Portuguese exhibitor represented Europe at the Hotel Show.

Our SkyDreamCam tourist webcam was a novelty, as there is no such thing in the area yet. In addition, for some reason, the visitors of the stand really liked the fact that we are Hungarians and were interested in WebGarden's IT services, too.

Special attention was paid to our SkyDreamCam Unseen product, which can be installed even in the desert without any kind of infrastructure, as long as there is signal, and we can broadcast live video streams and make daily time-lapses from there.

We had very nice neighbours, opposite to us was the SaudiHome architectural firm, and a Lebanese furniture company next to us. As soon as they saw the plastic conference chairs and roll-ups provided with the stand, we were immediately lent super velvet chairs in the company’s colors for the duration of the exhibition.

The first subordinate and foreign economic attaché from the Embassy of Hungary in Riyadh also visited our stand.

The 3-day exhibition ended with a fire show and DJ set. We promised the organizers that we will be participating the exhibition next year, as well.

Unfortunately, due to the vicissitudes of the trip, we didn't really have energy to do anything during the day (the exhibition lasted from 4 pm to 10 pm), and 45 degrees was not uncommon in Riyadh during the day either.

Last day, however, we decided to go somewhere and check how time could be well-spent in Riyadh. Lovers of shopping malls can get lost for days in the city’s countless luxury malls. We tried to reveal local specialties.
We found a fast-food restaurant similar to the Hungarian “Főzelékfaló” (kind of a pottage canteen), where local food was served. We found one, where the gravy of the meat was still boiling when it was served on an iron plate. By the way, it was very delicious with the ‘desert bread’ (as we called it).

After the mandatory PCR test (it went very smoothly, it was enough to show up and the process was already on) we took on to the Red Sand Dunes, which was a bit tough because it is 80km from the city in the desert and you can get there with Uber, but for the way back you need lot of luck if you haven’t organized a ride.

There were plenty of quads to rent around the dunes and off-road sand dune jumps could also be paid for. We got quite serious quads for 200 rials per hour per person. Once we paid the amount, we could sit on the quad and they showed us, where the desert is. From here, everyone could do what they wanted. It was perhaps the best quad experience so far, obviously this round is not recommended for inexperienced quad riders at first.

The quad guys were so cute to have a return trip arranged for us, so we didn’t have to go back to the hotel on foot.

As an evening program, we drove to a mall with great views for photographers of the surrounding skyscrapers. After a short walk, we’ve also reached The Kingdom Centre, which we’ve also taken a great time-lapse of as its lights change.

We hope that the great interest will turn into concretes soon and we’ll soon be able to return to the UK again, where we can install our first SkyDreamCam cameras and enter the market with WebGarden’s IT services, as well.

On the way home, there was a 1-day transfer to Cairo, where we also managed to see the play of the pyramid lights.