After avoiding foreign travels for over a year, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has been very active in the last 60 days, traveling across the Arab world. The toxic shadow over his favorite son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is undoubtedly a factor in the king’s higher profile. The Saudis are struggling to regain control of their international image.

In his first years on the throne after his 2015 ascension, the king was a typical royal traveler. He made state visits to many countries in the Middle East as well as to the United States, Britain, Japan, China, Indonesia and Russia. He also typically took an extended summer vacation in France or Morocco. His schedule was never hectic, but it was thorough.

The pattern stopped in late 2017, when several hundred prominent Saudis were forcefully incarcerated in the Ritz Carlton hotel. This was part of a self-proclaimed anti-corruption campaign, yet many have said it was more like a mafia shakedown. For more than a year (and all of 2018) the king did not travel outside the kingdom. The crown prince was the driver behind the Ritz Carlton affair, which alienated many prominent Saudis, including important members of the House of Saud.

Along with my colleague Israa Saber at the Brookings Institution, I speculated last year about the reason behind the hiatus in foreign travels. Health may have been a factor, but ill Saudi kings actually tend to spend more time abroad to get medical attention. More likely, tensions within the royal family over the crown prince’s behavior was the answer. The king didn’t want to leave the kingdom while it was unsettled.