"Thanks to his extraordinary vision and his great love for the territory, Karim Aga Khan built a tourism model that has become famous throughout the world". This is the moving message with which the Costa Smeralda Consortium and Smeralda Holding remember the prince, who passed away yesterday in Lisbon at the age of 88. It was he, in the early 1960s, who purchased the land in the area and founded the consortium, officially born on 14 March 1962 to manage, control and protect the territory concerned. A turning point for tourism in Sardinia , which was added to other creations such as the Azzurra boat in the 1980s : "A system that has determined a change in the social and economic development of the entire community, leaving an indelible mark on the history of Arzachena, Gallura and Sardinia as a whole".
«At the end of the 50s», the story of the consortium and holding of what Prince Aga Khan did, «at just twenty years old he conceived an enlightened project and on March 14, 1962 he inaugurated Porto Cervo, which has established itself as one of the most important tourist centers in the world, as it still is today . From nothing, thanks to the synergic activity with all the institutions, the territory, preserving its beauty, has been equipped with all the necessary infrastructures to make the Costa Smeralda a dream destination for all tourists in the world». In addition to the consortium and holding, in these hours the condolences of Sardinian politics have arrived .
The name Costa Smeralda unites and defines the territories of the properties associated with the consortium, with a coastal extension of about 55 kilometers and the borders delimited (symbolically) by two granite rocks : one on the panoramic road coming from Olbia, after Portisco, the other just after Liscia di Vacca, on the road to Baja Sardinia. The total land is about 3,114 hectares, in the municipalities of Arzachena and Olbia. «The Costa Smeralda Consortium and Smeralda Holding have taken on and live daily the commitment to continue in the path traced by the Aga Khan», they underline.
The Consortium and holding thank the municipalities of Arzachena and Olbia, which immediately declared a day of mourning for the death of the prince . And they "express their deepest and most affectionate condolences to Princess Zahra and the entire family". 2020 was the year in which the prince's interests in the Costa Smeralda were – formally – closed, after a sixty-year history .
(Online Union)