Skift Global Forum Video: Shaping the Future of Heritage Tourism

This sponsored content was created in collaboration with a Skift partner.

AlUla, a county the size of Belgium tucked away in northwest Saudi Arabia, is the seat of many millennia of history. The region’s Nabataean city of Hegra is widely known, but the ancient kingdoms of Dadan and Lihyan also built their thrones in AlUla. Archeologists are still excavating the region, mining for a better understanding of humanity’s origins.

Seven thousand years of civilization have played out in the AlUla region, and much of that ancient history is documented in petroglyphs at Jabal Ikma, AlUla’s open library. The inscriptions even include some ancient Greek and Latin because AlUla’s wealth of resources on the popular incense road made it a popular crossing point. 

“When visitors arrive in AlUla, they find stunning landscapes and 900 million years of geology juxtaposed with the lush green of the oasis,” said Melanie de Souza, executive director of destination marketing at the Royal Commission for AlUla at this year’s Skift Global Forum. De Souza joined Kate Irwin, Skift managing director of EMEA, on stage in New York to explore AlUla’s development blueprint and the region’s plans to shape the future of heritage tourism in Saudi Arabia and beyond. 

The region’s rich historical inheritance makes AlUla a poster child for the recent boom in heritage tourism. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, cultural and historical travel accounts for about 40 percent of global tourism annually. According to Grand View Research, the market value of the heritage tourism sector is projected to climb from $570.89 billion in 2022 to over $778 billion by 2030.

Welcoming Heritage Travelers While Fending Off Overtourism

Heritage tourism’s popularity means countless travelers are visiting some of the world’s most ancient and sometimes fragile ecosystems. As the problems of overtourism radiate throughout the travel industry, destinations like AlUla must seriously consider both the benefits and costs of welcoming an influx of visitors. 

When Saudi Arabia welcomed international tourists for the first time in 2019, visitor numbers skyrocketed — 27 million international tourists heeded the invitation in 2023. According to de Souza, being a relative latecomer to the heritage tourism trend has given AlUla a chance to learn from other destinations’ successes and mistakes. For example, the county plans to implement a maximum limit of two million annual tourists by 2035 and will cap the number of tourists permitted to visit individual heritage sites each day.

“How do we go about our tourism in a way that respects both the natural and the built environment?” de Souza asked at Skift’s event. “And how do we encourage our customers to share this ethos?” 

AlUla’s Brand Promise to Revitalize Always, In All Ways

Earlier this year, AlUla manifested those questions with its first-ever brand campaign. “Forever Revitalizing” showcases AlUla’s breathtaking scenery and puts this ancient oasis’s promise within modern travelers’ reach. The destination’s brand uplift studies showed over 544 million views in the campaign’s first five months. Close partnerships with airlines and local businesses will help AlUla transition the campaign from awareness into consideration and conversion cycles.

The campaign was designed to introduce AlUla to the global stage and establish its identity as a destination imbued with purpose. Internally, it served as a rallying cry for the critical balance between showing off the region’s rich cultural heritage and the imperative to conserve it.  “It was very important that this campaign did justice to the locals and the community and how they want their homeland portrayed,” de Souza told Irwin on stage.

“Forever Revitalizing” also shows travelers that they can expect curated, high-quality journeys at AlUla. However, fulfilling modern travelers’ expectations while maintaining the authenticity that makes heritage tourism appealing is a tall order. AlUla has taken a broad approach to cracking that contradiction by tapping back into the region’s roots as a hotbed of nature, art, and culture.

Combining Nature, Art, and Culture to Attract Modern Heritage Tourists

For example, the Sharaan Nature Reserve was named one of the world’s greatest places in TIME Magazine this year. Its 193 square miles (1,500 square kilometers) are already home to endangered species like the Arabian wolf, gazelle, and large-eared red fox. The Royal Commission for AlUla hopes its rewilding campaign will restore the flora of the reserve as one step in its efforts toward bringing back the Arabian leopard from the brink of extinction.

In the arts category, AlUla has already hosted three installments of Desert X, a site-specific contemporary art exhibition organized in collaboration with the team behind Coachella. The success of Desert X AlUla has inspired Wadi AlFann, AlUla’s own outdoor arts celebration, already claiming the likes of James Terrell, Michael Heizer, Ahmed Mater, and Agnes Denes. “For many of these amazing legends, these are going to be era-defining works,” de Souza told Skift’s audience.

For activity-minded travelers eager to experience the outdoors, AlUla offers everything from stargazing to ballooning and hiking to cycling. Sixteen miles (26 kilometers) of freshly laid cycling track have enabled AlUla to host the AlUla Tour, where the world’s best cyclists compete against the region’s historic backdrop. The sheer range of these experiences evidences just how much thought has gone into developing AlUla as a destination. “There is so much on the ground that is a reflection of a very carefully considered blueprint for how we are going to grow out this destination,” de Souza said.

This content was created collaboratively by AlUla and Skift’s branded content studio, SkiftX.