Located in the northwestern part of the
kingdom, around 325km northeast of the city of Medina, traces found in Al-Ula
date back to the Bronze Age. Amongst the many ruins stands Mada’in Saleh known
to be the second largest after Petra covering eight square miles littered with
towering tombs carved out of pure rock.
Tomb at Madain Saleh
Al-Ula’s
Old Town was established around 800 years ago, hosting different travelers for many
centuries. It is with doubt that Al-Ula is a true hidden treasure from Saudi
Arabia’s past, and efforts are being placed in it to make it a key part of its
economic future since it is a place of extraordinary human and natural heritage.
The main aim of the Government is to preserve Al-Ula and open it up to the
world as one of the most attractive tourist places not just in KSA but in the
region by introducing significant tourism, hospitality and culture
infrastructure in it to all its visitors.
CEO of the Al-Ula Royal Commission Amer
Madani has been assigned to look after Al-Ula and open it up to the world. He
said: “By 2023 we will be introducing significant tourism and hospitality
and culture infrastructure in Al Ula,” he tells Euronews. “This includes
creating living museums from Galleries and outdoor art illustrations to a
viewpoint, ….. and the inscriptions found on Al-Ula’s rocks are a priceless
element of the Kingdom’s heritage”.
The
kingdom’s 2030 vision aims to reduce dependence on oil and transform its
economy by developing public services and increasing tourism. In fact, in the
next coming years, the Government of Saudi Arabia is planning to increase the
revenue earned from tourism to 18 percent of its GDP, turning the Kingdom as
one of the most attractive tourist countries in the world.
Al-Ula’s
Old Town
The tourism industry with no doubt is one of the oldest and largest
industries in the world. In recent years, Artificial
Intelligence (AI) has started revolutionizing
the whole world in all aspects of the businesses including travel and tourism
industries, by providing services such as personalization and customization,
predictive analytics, and automation. AI is now being embraced by the tourism
industry as an essential technology in their operations becoming one of the most sophisticated technologies that started to play a big
role in shaping the future of travel and tourism and has more applications than
just customer service to improve business practices.
Delivering excellent customer
service is essential for business success in general and in the travel and
tourism industry specifically. Adaptation of the latest technologies can help
by improving general services, offering fast response times to customer
queries, and tailoring recommendations. AI in
the tourism industry has enabled more efficient and effective customer service,
personalized experiences, and improved customer satisfaction significantly. AI
with its power has made major changes in improving and promoting tourism allowing
the improvement in their customer service, providing customers with better
experiences and more efficiency, enabling more data-driven decisions, helping
in optimizing of customer segmentation and marketing campaigns, as well as
streamlining customer communication and support.
The CEO
of Al-Ula has quoted “We will need many services, engineering firms,
consultants, design firms, and artists to partner with us”.
Even
though Al-Ula received more than 250,000 visitors in the past 12 months, far
exceeding its forecast, I am sure that with your recommendations as an IS
Specialist you can attract more visitors through the use of technology.
As a
consultant to promote tourism and more visitors to Al-Ula using technology in
general and particularly using “AI”, you are requested to investigate and
identify first the current facilities in Al-Ula including hotels, attractions,
festivals, adventures, unique events, etc. as a background to set the stage for
your analysis to the case. The analysis of the case should include but not
limited to:
1.An
introduction
2.
Background
3.
Problem
statement
4.
Review
of the Literature on the impact of AI in tourism
5.
How
utilization of “AI” will promote tourism and more visitors in Al-Ula
6.
Propose
solutions/recommendations and select the best ones
7.
Develop
an implementation plan
8.
Concluding
remarks
9.
References