English-language daily news site Arab News has released a graphical feature item on its website detailing the five Saudi historic sites inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
Arab News calls the published piece, which employs an enhanced user experience, a “deep dive” on the five UNESCO sites across the Kingdom.
“One of the objectives of the increasingly outward-looking nation of Saudi Arabia, set out in the ambitious Vision 2030 document and its plan to create a more diverse and sustainable economy, is to open up the Kingdom to visitors as a destination for heritage tourism. Among the attractions long closed off to much of the world are many hundreds of historic sites,” Arab News writes.
“Very few, however, have been visited by tourists, and some are unknown even to Saudi citizens. Now, all that is set to change, with a plan to make Saudi Arabia a major global destination, welcoming 100 million international and domestic visitors by 2030…
“The stories of how the Prophet Muhammad received and spread the word of God in the seventh century, and of how King Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, known as Ibn Saud, forged a nation from a multitude of disparate and warring tribes in the early 20th century, are as familiar as they are epic. Less familiar, however, is the story of the deeper foundations of the region, upon which the modern state of Saudi Arabia was built and whose origins date back 10,000 years or more.”
“Together, Saudi Arabia’s five UNESCO sites tell that story — from the wonders of the world’s largest collection of prehistoric petroglyphs, the mysterious rock-carved tombs of the ancient Nabataean city of Hegra and the world’s largest and oldest oasis, to the mud-brick settlement that is the birthplace of the modern Saudi state and the unique houses of old Jeddah, for centuries the gateway to the holy city of Makkah.”
