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RCU Expects over 90,000 Domestic Tourists to Visit AlUla in 2021

AlUla is part of the region and the world's cultural heritage. (SPA)
AlUla is part of the region and the world's cultural heritage. (SPA)
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RCU Expects over 90,000 Domestic Tourists to Visit AlUla in 2021

AlUla is part of the region and the world's cultural heritage. (SPA)
AlUla is part of the region and the world's cultural heritage. (SPA)

As the world hopes to turn a new page and for life to go back to normal with the start of the new year, there are hopes for a rejuvenation in the tourism and aviation industries. Touristic sites and facilities are preparing to host the many visitors who are planning to travel for vacation to compensate for missing out on their holiday getaways last year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

AlUla is among the most prominent of these sites in Saudi Arabia. The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) expects to draw over 90,000 visitors to this historical area in northwestern Saudi Arabia this year.

The RCU’s newly launched marketing campaign, a key part of its strategy to attract visitors for 2021 and 2022 (when the number of visitors is expected to reach 130,000) is framed to attract domestic tourists since airborne travel is not expected to return to normal until later.

The campaign’s video features a young Saudi woman reflecting on her visit to AlUla, where she saw its major sites, including UNESCO World Heritage Site Hegra, Dadan, Jabal Ikmah, the Old Town and Jabal Al-Fil (Elephant Rock). She is also seen mesmerized by the mirrored architecture wonder, Maraya, and strolling through the lush winter oasis.

Commenting on the campaign’s domestic market focus, RCU Chief Destination Management and Marketing Officer Phillips Jones said: “We know Saudis love to travel and we hope this campaign will inspire many of them to appreciate a must-see destination, a global masterpiece, closer to home.”

On the attractions and activities on offer, he added: “Our heritage sites are now available year-round, with new hotels, restaurants and adventure experiences including, trails, bikes and buggies, which will be rolled out throughout 2021. We encourage visitors to book ahead and recommended that they stay a few days mid-week to have the best possible experience”.

Still, on the longer term, the RCU, like other bodies managing Saudi Vision 2030 projects, expects to see a strong increase in the number of tourists from around the world, especially as many have shown strong interest in visiting the site.

RCU Executive Director Marketing Melanie de Souza affirmed recently: “We have already received a lot of interest from international travelers excited to explore a new destination with such a rich history, one that was hope to the Dadanites, Nabataeans and Romans.”

“The travel landscape has been irreversibly altered, but as travel slowly resumes, research tells us people will be looking for meaningful travel, vast open spaces and experiences that bring them closer to nature. AlUla, for all of those reasons, as a novel and significant heritage and cultural site, is well-positioned both in the domestic market and internationally,” said de Souza.

Within 15 years’ time, the RCU hope that the project will come to welcome more than 2.5 million visitors annually, as development continuous and it expects the project to generate 67,000 new jobs.

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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
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Researchers Document Huge Drop in African Elephants in a Half Century

Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo
Elephants walk at the Amboseli National Park in Kajiado County, Kenya, April 4, 2024. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi/File Photo

African elephants are Earth's largest land animals, remarkable mammals that are very intelligent and highly social. They also are in peril. Fresh evidence of this comes in a study that documents alarming population declines at numerous sites across the continent over about a half century.

Researchers unveiled on Monday what they called the most comprehensive assessment of the status of the two African elephant species - the savanna elephant and forest elephant - using data on population surveys conducted at 475 sites in 37 countries from 1964 through 2016.

The savanna elephant populations fell by about 70% on average at the surveyed sites and the forest elephant populations dropped by about 90% on average at the surveyed sites, with poaching and habitat loss the main drivers. All told, there was a 77% population decrease on average at the various surveyed sites, spanning both species, Reuters reported.

Elephants vanished at some sites while their populations increased in other places thanks to conservation efforts.

"A lot of the lost populations won't come back, and many low-density populations face continued pressures. We likely will lose more populations going forward," said George Wittemyer, a Colorado State University professor of wildlife conservation and chair of the scientific board of the conservation group Save the Elephants, who helped lead the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Poaching typically involves people killing elephants for their tusks, which are sold illegally on an international black market driven mostly by ivory demand in China and other parts of Asia. Agricultural expansion is the top factor in habitat loss.

The forest elephant population is estimated to be about a third that of savanna elephants. Poaching has affected forest elephants disproportionately and has ravaged populations of both species in northern and eastern Africa.

"We have lost a number of elephant populations across many countries, but the northern Sahel region of Africa - for example in Mali, Chad and Nigeria - has been particularly hard hit. High pressure and limited protection have culminated in populations being extirpated," Wittemyer said.

But in southern Africa, elephant populations rose at 42% of the surveyed sites.

"We have seen real success in a number of places across Africa, but particularly in southern Africa, with strong growth in populations in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. For populations showing positive trends, we have had active stewardship and management by the governments or outside groups that have taken on a management role," Wittemyer said.

The study did not track a continent-wide population tally because the various surveys employed different methodologies over different time frames to estimate local elephant population density, making a unified head count impossible. Instead, it assessed population trends at each of the surveyed sites.

A population estimate by conservationists conducted separately from this study put the two species combined at between 415,000 and 540,000 elephants as of 2016, the last year of the study period. It remains the most recent comprehensive continent-wide estimate.

"The loss of large mammals is a significant ecological issue for Africa and the planet," said conservation ecologist and study co-author Dave Balfour, a research associate in the Centre for African Conservation Ecology at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

The world's third extant elephant species, the slightly smaller Asian elephant, faces its own population crisis, with similar factors at play as in Africa.

Of African elephants, Wittemyer said, "While the trends are not good, it is important to recognize the successes we have had and continue to have. Learning how and where we can be successful in conserving elephants is as important as recognizing the severity of the decline they have experienced."

Wittemyer added of these elephants: "Not only one of the most sentient and intelligent species we share the planet with, but also an incredibly important part of ecosystems in Africa that structures the balance between forest and grasslands, serves as a critical disperser of seeds, and is a species on which a multitude of other species depend on for survival."