Tourism Breaking News
The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) gave a global audience of over 2500 industry leaders and stakeholders insight into AlUla’s journey to become an international tourism destination with arts, culture and community at its heart, in a virtual conference. The panel, titled ‘Arts and Culture: Inspiring a future of tourism development in ancient landscapes,’ saw a team from RCU join former Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova; Jean-François Charnier, Scientific Director at AgenceFrançaise pour le Développementd’AlUla (AFALULA); Neville Wakefield, Creator and Artistic Director at Desert X; and Callum Lee of BOP Consulting.
During the panel, Abdulrahman AlSuhaibani, Director of Museums and Exhibitions at RCU, who conducted research into AlUla’s ancient civilisations as part of his doctorate at the Sorbonne University in France, said, “The human presence in AlUla began more than 200,000 years ago and continues until our time. This has left a diversity and richness in the archaeological remains, and also in the community today. There is a huge story that we are going to share with the world, but the most important thing is how we can preserve and protect it.”
Nora AlDabal, Arts and Culture Programming Director at RCU, said, “It’s really important to us to establish AlUla as a cultural hub for creativity and artistic exchange. We’ve developed multiple arts workshops, including with Desert X: We had the artists work not only on the exhibition itself but also within the community.”
Neville Wakefield, Curator, Desert X supported this, saying, “Indeed, one of the joys of working in AlUla was making the community part of the artistic experience. We had so much involvement because everyone had a point of entry. Everyone has a sense of what the desert is and how art can reflect it. So, the art became a prism showing different aspects of the AlUla community.”
