What AlUla is known for

AlUla is an oasis in the Hejaz desert, roughly 60,000 people today, known for ancient rock-cut tombs that took a permit to see. A 2017 royal decree created the Royal Commission for AlUla to turn them into a place the world would fly in to see. The oasis drew about 320,000 visitors in 2025.

A place that was never empty

AlUla was never empty. Dadanites, Lihyanites and Nabataeans built here, leaving rock-cut tombs and ancient inscriptions, and the old town’s 900 mudbrick buildings were lived in within living memory. Roughly 45,000 people lived in the region before the tourism push, hours by road from the nearest large city.

Real heritage is not a destination. Tombs that took a permit to see drew a few thousand people a year, and Saudi Arabia issued no tourist visas until September 2019. Before 2017 AlUla had plenty; little of it was what the outside world knew how to buy. To matter it had to become reachable and legible.

Decreeing a destination

A 2017 royal decree created the Royal Commission for AlUla. Maraya, the world’s largest mirrored building, clad in nearly ten thousand square meters of mirror, was completed for the first Winter at Tantora festival. In 2020 the 2,000-year-old Hegra tombs opened, Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What the valley runs now

AlUla drew about 320,000 visitors in 2025, with an airport 45 minutes by road from the tombs. The commission says publicly it expects record numbers as marketing continues. A valley once entered on permits now runs a heritage site, a mirrored hall and a festival season.

Why it worked

The ruins were never the scarce thing. Tombs that took a permit were not yet a destination; what AlUla manufactured was the decision to make them one and the machinery to defend it.

With one improbable identity chosen, an open-air museum in an inhabited oasis, it backed the claim with a permanent government commission, a globally photographed mirror building and a UNESCO stamp. Reachability replaced permits and distance.