AlUla in Saudi Arabia is already beating visitor targets after only opening up to the world pre-pandemic.
“Our goal was 95,000 visitors [for 2021], and we closed at 129,000,” Phillip Jones, Chief Destination Management and Marketing Officer, at the Royal Commission for AlUla, tells TTN’s Kim Thomson.
With several flights a week from Dubai, AlUla is now a year-round destination, not just seasonal, he says. “We have also added a flight from Paris to AlUla on Sundays on Saudia. About 12 per cent of our visitors are coming from France, so it is an important market with both corporate and leisure travel.
“The UAE is our secondary source market next only to Saudi Arabia. With the drive of domestic tourism, the Saudis have discovered their own country. Six per cent of our visitors are from the US.”
“We are doing a lot of site and fam visits for the travel trade and top operators”
– Philip Jones
In terms of hotel inventory, Habitas AlUla has opened with 96 keys last year. Banyan Tree AlUla’s phase one is already open and phase two is expected to open this month with 87 villas. Shaden Resort AlUla, an MGallery Experience by Accor, is a four-star property that’s now opened. The destination also has some 10 new restaurants, which have opened over the last six months.
“We have two more new hotels opening this year: a boutique hotel in Hegra and also a boutique hotel in AlUla’s Old Town. At the end of this year, we will have an Abercrombie and Kent camp as well. Next year, we will open the first of our three Aman Hotels and we will also be announcing three new brands that will be part of the next phase as well as some local brands. We will continue with high-end food and beverage as well. We also have an adventure hub now with ziplining, abseiling, Via Ferrata and rock climbing. We have a new 26-kilometre bike path and hiking and desert tracking. We will be building an observatory for star gazing, we are building four museums, we are building a trolley that will take you through the Oasis of Old Town to Hegra. We are creating an Equestrian Centre – so a lot to come.”
“In February, we had an Alicia Keys concert. She also ran a women in empowerment session. In the pipeline are Seal, Russel Peters, Bryan Adams and Michael Bublé - all performing at Maraya [the mirrors installation].”
To avoid overtourism, the strategy is to keep a limited number of visitors to AlUla. “We will welcome 200,000 visitors in the next two years. We have limited inventory, but we don’t want to ruin the experience, we also want to preserve and protect these sites for another 7,000 years, so we want high-end luxury visitors to come and have an experience that is individualist versus surrounded by thousands of other people. That is one of the things that sets us apart.
“We are doing a lot of site and fam visits for the travel trade and top operators within our top 10 markets, the GCC, the US, Australia as well as France, Italy, Germany, UK, Russia, China and India. We may target other countries, but ultimately, we are going to talk to the visitor that meets our profile,” says Jones.