ROYAL-COMMISSION-ALULA
19.12.2019 22:23:14 CET | Business Wire | Press release
The second Winter at Tantora Festival in AlUla in North West Saudi Arabia starts today – a three-month celebration that will showcase the very best in international music, art and culture connecting East and West as the AlUla county has done for thousands of years.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191219005781/en/
It comes just months after Saudi Arabia introduced tourist visas to citizens from 49 countries making the Kingdom more accessible than ever with the UNESCO World Heritage site at Hegra in AlUla among those featured in a global marketing campaign.
The festival is part of the Cultural Manifesto that was launched by the festival organisers, the Royal Commission for AlUla, in Paris in October as part of a long-term strategy to transform the region and open the region as a global living museum and place of culture, heritage and the arts.
Winter at Tantora will cover 12 weekends from 19th December and host a wide range of events from the world-famous Dakar Rally; international ballooning festival; the world’s second longest endurance horse race; the world’s first desert polo tournament and welcome pop-up restaurants from globally renowned restaurants.
The spectacular mirrored wall Maraya Theatre with its 500-seat capacity and operatic sound quality will be home throughout the festival to some of the world’s leading performers who range from Omar Khairat to Andrea Bocelli.
Festival visitors will also be able to meet and engage with young members of the AlUla community who are benefitting from a diverse range of training programmes in hospitality; culture; nature and the environment and studying overseas including 24 men and women at the FERRANDI Paris culinary institute in Paris.
These young chefs will work alongside Michelin-starred experts during the festival creating world-class cuisine that will incorporate local ingredients from the fertile AlUla valley and blending traditional recipes with modern cuisine.
RCU CEO Amr AlMadani says: “Festival visitors will be given a unique opportunity to visit and experience one of the world’s undiscovered places and its spectacular heritage sites before we reopen them to the world in October 2020.
“They will get a tantalising glimpse of a place that been a cultural crossroads for thousands of years and the chance to see it from the serenity of a hot air balloon; the adrenaline of soaring over the desert and mountains in an open seater biplane or exploring hidden canyons in traditional vintage Land Rovers.”
The Royal Commission for AlUla has also completed major infrastructure work at AlUla airport – increasing capacity fourfold to 400,000 visitors a year and upgrading local mountain resorts to enhance the visitor experience.
AlUla will be a worldwide destination for those seeking a unique experience of the full meaning and context of landscape – an experience that integrates the natural and cultural heritage as one living environment. By safeguarding our precious landscapes and cultural heritage this open-air museum will be the Kingdom’s gift to the world creating remarkable and lasting memories.
‘Authentic AlUla’, the opening weekend, is a celebration rooted in AlUla, to mark the start of the winter planting season at the iconic Tantora sundial from which the festival is named. It is the first of 12 specially themed weekends.
Notes to editors
To find out more about the Winter at Tantora festival and details of packages and the entertainment and cultural programmes, log on to www.experiencealula.com
To find out more about how the Royal Commission for AlUla is working with the community to develop a world-class tourism destination, log on to www.rcu.gov.sa
*Source: AETOSWire
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191219005781/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Telekom Srbija Secures U.S. EXIM Financing to Accelerate 5G Rollout8.5.2026 11:48:00 CEST | Press release
Approval from the Export-Import Bank of the United States will support Serbia’s next-generation telecoms expansion and strengthen U.S.–Serbia technology and economic ties Telekom Srbija Group today announced that the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) has granted final approval for financing to support the continued rollout of Telekom Srbija’s 5G network. The EXIM-supported financing will help fund the deployment of 5G telecommunications network equipment and related services in Serbia, supplied by U.S. technology companies. It marks a major milestone in Telekom Srbija’s long-term investment programme and strengthens the company’s relationship with leading U.S. financial and technology institutions. Telekom Srbija launched commercial 5G services in Serbia in December 2025 and is continuing to expand coverage nationwide. The company is targeting 5G coverage across all Serbian cities by the end of 2026, with full national coverage by the end of 2027. The financing follows EXI
Philip Morris International’s Moira Gilchrist Positions Human Judgment as a Critical Leadership Advantage Amid Rapid AI Adoption at Wall Street Journal Forum8.5.2026 10:00:00 CEST | Press release
PMI’s Chief Global Communications Officer says companies that safeguard human judgment will gain a competitive edge as AI automates routine knowledge work Philip Morris International’s (PMI) (NYSE:PM) Chief Global Communications Officer, Moira Gilchrist, joined global thought leaders at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference in New York to examine why human cognition—judgment, context, creativity, and ethical reasoning—is becoming the most valuable asset in an age of artificial intelligence. “The AI boom is putting a premium on distinctly human capabilities,” said Gilchrist, who took part in the session “Cognition: The New Currency – Why Human Judgment Matters More Than Ever.” Speaking to attendees, she emphasized that, “As knowledge is getting democratized, human judgment, intuition, and creativity become the true differentiators that leaders need to nurture across all levels of their organizations.” Philip Morris International is today a different company, built wi
Fortegra Appoints Iwan Röpcke as Chief Executive Officer, Belgium8.5.2026 09:30:00 CEST | Press release
The Fortegra Group, Inc., a global specialty insurer, today announced the appointment of Iwan Röpcke as Chief Executive Officer, Belgium. Mr. Röpcke brings more than 25 years of insurance industry experience to the role, spanning broking, commercial leadership, and executive management across the Benelux and broader European markets. He joins Fortegra from Lloyd’s Insurance Company S.A., where he served as Country Manager for Belgium and the Netherlands, building out the operation from its early stages and overseeing both business strategy and development. Prior to Lloyd's, Mr. Röpcke held senior leadership positions at Willis Towers Watson (via Gras Savoye), where he served as Head of Sales and Head of the Competence Center. His career also includes roles at Inter Partner Assistance (AXA Assistance) as Commercial Director Benelux, Winterthur Europe Assurances, AIG Europe, Aon Belgium, and Marsh. Mr. Röpcke’s industry expertise spans a range of specialty risk areas, with deep relations
KAYTUS Launches All-QLC Flash Storage at AI EXPO 2026 for 10,000-GPU Clusters8.5.2026 09:02:00 CEST | Press release
KAYTUS’s next-generation all-QLC flash solution delivers fully linear performance scaling for massive GPU clusters, while reducing TCO by 70%, enabling ultra-large-scale computing for the era of agentic AI. At AI EXPO KOREA 2026, KAYTUS officially launched its All-QLC Flash Storage Solution, engineered to deliver high performance, massive scalability, and cost efficiency for 10,000-GPU clusters. The solution addresses data-delivery bottlenecks in ultra-large-scale AI training, helping maximize GPU resource utilization. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260508313130/en/ Based on the KR2280 and KR1180 server platforms, the solution is deeply integrated with industry-leading AI-native parallel file systems to eliminate data silos inherent in traditional tiered storage. Purpose-built for read-intensive AI workloads, it overcomes the horizontal scaling limitations of massive clusters. Verified test-data shows that, a
Beneq Appoints Dr. Jason Harrison as Chief Executive Officer8.5.2026 09:00:00 CEST | Press release
Semiconductor industry leader takes the helm to accelerate Beneq’s next phase of growth in atomic layer deposition Beneq Oy, the home of atomic layer deposition (ALD), today announced the appointment of Dr. Jason Harrison as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Harrison succeeds Dr. Tommi Vainio and will lead Beneq into its next phase of growth across semiconductor, optical, and emerging technology markets. A Strategic Leadership Transition Beneq enters its next phase of growth from a position of strong commercial momentum. Recent milestones include the qualification of the Beneq Transform® cluster tool for volume production of GaN power and RF filter devices; the introduction of Beneq Transmute™ and Beneq Transform® XP, both engineered for high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of specialty semiconductors; growing adoption of the P-Series for coating critical chamber parts in advanced node devices; and selection of the C2R™ for AR waveguide production in next-generation XR optics. Against this backd
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom