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How can embracing lessons from the past inform the building blocks for a sustainable community?
“We are working hand in hand with our community to bring our ambitious vision to life, to deliver a thriving and diversified economy and destination that will improve quality of life through AlUla comprehensive urban and community regeneration,” says Abdulrahman AlTrairi, chief of communications and PR at the Royal Commission for AlUla.
“It's very important to be close to the community, be humble enough to hear from them, to learn from them,” he says.
In this episode of Visionary Realms, AlTrairi joins FT Longitude’s Meg Wright to discuss the role of cultural heritage in informing urban development and planning, and design with community in mind.
Interview transcript:
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: It's very important to be close to the community, be humble enough to hear from them, to learn from them, and then try to understand their need before just coming with helicopter vision and articulating programmes or initiatives for them, which simply may not work for them.
VO: This interview is part of Visionary Realms, an audio series produced by FT Longitude in partnership with The Royal Commission for AlUla.
Meg Wright: Its strategic position has, throughout millennia, made the Saudi Arabian city of AlUla a crucial hub for trade and culture.
Today, AlUla aims to maintain strong ties to that cultural heritage, using it as the basis for a prospering community that is grounded in both sustainability and economic growth.
Hello and welcome to Visionary Realms, a series that explores new visions for community development, tourism and heritage preservation. Each episode we take a closeup look at a community or region that is drawing on lessons from the past to build for a sustainable future.
I'm your host, Meg Wright, and today we're off to the city of AlUla, an ancient Arabic desert oasis, located 330 kilometres northwest of the Saudi Arabian city of Madinah. We will be taking a look at the role of cultural heritage in creating sustainable growth and economic development.
So how can embracing lessons from the past inform the building blocks for a prosperous community?
Joining me to discuss this is Abdulrahman AlTrairi, chief of communications and PR at the Royal Commission for AlUla. Abdulrahman, thank you for joining me.
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: Thank you for having me, Meg.
Meg Wright: Abdulrahman, AlUla has such a rich history across thousands of years of human habitation. Could you start by sharing some of the lessons that can be learned from the past to develop sustainable communities for the future?
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: Indeed. The evolution of AlUla isn't just about the present. The history of AlUla spans 200,000 years of our shared human history. It is a place of incredible culture, deep-rooted heritage and ancient wonders. There's much we can learn from AlUla’s past, and its unique role as a crossroad of civilizations, a place where travellers and traders on the Incense Road came together to share knowledge, create new ideas, and explore new solutions.
Located in the Northwest Arabia, AlUla covers more than 22,000 square metres. A vast, cultural and natural landscape of towering mountains, sweeping desert and ancient oases.
AlUla is home of Hegra, of course, which is the kingdom's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, it was recognised back in 2008, a collection of tombs carved by the Nabataean in the First Century BC.
The stories of Arabia can be traced through AlUla’s incredible cultural landmarks and heritage just as Athens or Rome hold the history of Europe.
Meg Wright: And I guess thinking about an area that is so diverse and so rich in history, how then are you engaging the local community to start to shape the future of AlUla? What sort of role do these people play in this new environment? How are they being centred in your plans?
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: This is one of the closest topics to my heart. I believe all the stories in AlUla are surrounded about the human. A human who builds civilization, a human who are now building and transforming the city toward the future. You can take this not only in developing a tourism destination, but also in their offer and efforts when it comes to agriculture and other aspects. So we are working hand in hand with our community to bring our ambitious vision to life, to deliver a thriving and diversified economy and destination that will improve quality of life through AlUla comprehensive urban and community regeneration.
And if you look for example, at our vision behind urban development, we are building the future inspired by the past. So we are giving the respect also to the people who used to live in this county. So what I always like to say that we are developing AlUla with the community, not around them. We are shaping AlUla into a well-managed county with high quality services and infrastructure that enhances the quality of life and of course uplift our communities. Our communities' participation in the success of AlUla is essential. This project definitely without the engagement of the community, it will be a big failure.
Meg Wright: I wonder too, are you able to give maybe an example of a project or a programme where you have engaged with the community, something that comes to mind maybe?
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: There is a lot, but I would say that one of the projects that we engage, really the community in the early phases of our RCU projects was around 2018 when we invited all the elder people who used to live in the Old Town to learn from them how was the city operating, where is the gate, what time they closed, where is the bakery, where is the houses, how the trade was working, how they used to protect their self from enemies. I can tell you, we learn a lot, which was very good baseline to start upon and start studying archaeological and all the other aspects in order to rebirth the Old Town again as it's now welcoming all the tourists and the visitors.
Meg Wright: Which is an important balance I can imagine to make sure that you get right. And I'm wondering then, how has AlUla balanced the community's needs when it comes to preserving such historically and naturally valuable sites at the same time as dealing with perhaps the pressure for increased development and for local economic empowerment?
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: We understand that from the experience of many other cities around the world, when there is, for example, mass tourism, this will not be the best scenario sometimes for the communities. When tourism came, sometimes the prices go up. So all of these topics are in our mind.
There is some sort of achievement, but still there is a long journey going forward to make sure that we have, for example, affordable houses, we have equal high standard services for the visitors and for the community.
Let me give you an example that came from our master planning. So on the 7th of April, 2021, we announced our first masterplan called Journey Through Time, which is the core heritage area started from Hegra to the north up to the south, 20 kilometres until the Old Town. This area will be full of resorts, tourism activities and what have you. But from the Old Town to the south, which is AlUla Central and AlUla South, this is where we announced our second masterplan, which is the core urban development area. We announced it last year, 30 August, and we call it Path To Prosperity. So it is for the community, it is where we improve the quality of life. And if I'll break down this title, it is health, education, sport, livability, and also we are creating a model where anywhere within AlUla South and Central, within 15 minutes walking, you'll find the key essential services. I speak about F&Bs (food and beverage outlets), clinic, school and so on.
Meg Wright: I'm curious too, how then is The Royal Commission for AlUla designing its programmes to start to support community resilience, especially as the region grows in all the different ways that we've been speaking about today?
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: Well, resilience was a huge topic to speak about, especially during the pandemic, of course. One of the earliest programmes was to empower and educate the community to be very competitive in the labour market. So we started with a very ambitious scholarship programme. We sent people to the UK, to France, to Australia and the US to study different majors, which is related to the jobs in the future. Speaking about histories, speaking about archaeology, speaking about agriculture, and so on and so forth.
Also, we created different other programmes. So we created a programme called Hammayah. Hammayah in English means the Protectors. So we started by having 2,500—and for the record, all our programmes are having 50% female, 50% male, all our programmes. So we get young people, who are not qualified to go to scholarship to this programme. So they start many important topics: What's the importance of keeping the city clean? What's the importance of protecting the heritage?
As AlUla is growing bigger, it is already attracting international and regional businesses to open offices here. So empowering the community to give them the tools, and then it's their right either to look for a job or to do business or whatsoever. So they became an important player in the economy when some of them already developed, for example, e-commerce channels to sell citrus products or dates or even some honey they created from other plants and trees in AlUla. They became capable, to maintain a level of sales for international countries, and to be resilient even if there is some sort of challenge due to pandemic or any other reason, or even not having the same flow of tourism all over the year.
Meg Wright: And finally, Abdulrahman, based on everything that we have covered here today, what do you think other regions can learn from AlUla’s approach to community development?
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: I would say that our DNA is so humble. Not to the level that we are teaching others—we are learning from others, and hope that others will find something to learn from us—but I would say that, especially for us as a communication team, we learn that the most important aspect in communication is to be listening. And I am a person who use usually a bit different definition for communication, which is hearing what has not been said. So it's very important to be close to the community, be humble enough to hear from them, to learn from them, and then try to understand their need before just coming with helicopter vision and articulating programmes or initiatives for them, which simply may not work for them.
Meg Wright: I think very sage advice and a great note to end on. So thank you very much for joining us today and we wish you all the best with the future of AlUla.
Abdulrahman AlTrairi: Thank you. Meg. Thank you all.