JEDDAH, 10 February 2005 — The Secretary-General of the Supreme Commission for Tourism (SCT), Prince Sultan ibn Salman, has underlined government efforts to preserve the Kingdom’s architectural heritage. “There are 6,366 heritage and antiquities sites in the Kingdom, of them 1,975 comes under architectural heritage,” Prince Sultan told a tourism conference in the Omani capital Muscat.
Prince Sultan, who was the keynote speaker at the inaugural session of the conference titled “Built Environments for Sustainable Tourism (BEST)”, said the Kingdom had taken the initiative to prepare two charters for the protection and development of architectural heritage.
Sayyid Haitham ibn Tariq Al-Said, Oman’s minister of heritage and culture, inaugurated the conference organized by the country’s Tourism Ministry in cooperation with UNESCO and the World Tourism Organization.
The conference focused on architectural aspects of tourism resorts, ecotourism with priority to environmental protection and other related aspects.
The participants discussed principles, guidelines and specific criteria that can be applied to the design of resorts, hotels and other tourism infrastructure in order to ensure their identity and long-term sustainability.
In his address, a copy of which was received by Arab News, Prince Sultan said SCT was planning to carry out a strategy of total administration of tourist sites in the country in order to integrate tourism and architectural heritage.
“We’ll establish coastal resorts on the Red Sea and operate tourist centers in the Kingdom’s rural areas to ensure continuous development of urban and rural areas and promote domestic tourism,” he said.
He said the Kingdom had adopted a strategy to develop antiquities and museums and develop a system for the protection of architectural heritage.
“The commission is now working on improving architectural environment and protecting tourist regions from expansion of construction,” the prince said.
Prince Sultan said the SCT had introduced a program in association with public and private agencies to raise the standard of environmental culture.
“We are also developing national resorts and natural reserves with the aim of promoting tourism,” he added.
Dr. Rajiha bint Abdul Ameer bin Ali, the Omani minister of tourism, said the four-day event would shed light on the ministry’s vision on tourism and stress the importance of heritage sites to make use of them for promoting tourism.
