Saudi tourism body to award museum, heritage contracts worth SR1.2 billion

Actors perform during a show at the Heritage village of Thee Ain in Al Baha last month. (SPA)

RIYADH: Nine museum and heritage projects will be awarded across the Kingdom at costs totaling more than SR433 million ($155 million), the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH) has announced.
The SCTH said another five projects will also be awarded within the SCTH cultural heritage projects whose costs are more than SR1.4 billion.
SCTH President Prince Sultan bin Salman has patronized the signing of the contracts with a number of national companies.
The new projects included the establishment of new museums, development of existing ones, expansion of the National Museum, maintenance, fencing and posting of awareness notices in the archaeological and heritage sites in addition to other projects to rehabilitate a number of archaeological sites across the Kingdom.
The new projects come as part of King Salman’s program for cultural heritage in the Kingdom. There are now 230 projects covering heritage with its various components such as antiquities, museums, sites of Islamic history, urban heritage, and handicrafts, plus other components of the Kingdom’s heritage.
The new projects also included the design of museum exhibitions; executive plans for the rehabilitation of Al-Saqqaf Palace in Makkah region; expansion and development of the National Museum (first phase); design and preparation of the executive plans of the SCTH regional museums in Dammam, Tabuk, Baha, Hail, Jouf, Najran and Asir; museum projects in Al-Qasim, Arar, Tima and Ahsa, and the railway museum in Madinah; the rehabilitation project of Khuzam Palace and other historic and heritage buildings in Ahsa; and the rehabilitation of ten heritage buildings in Yanbu (first phase).
On the other hand, the maintenance, fencing and posting notices projects covered 300 sites across the Kingdom and the signing of operation and engineering contracts for museums and archaeological sites more than 130 locations in all parts of the Kingdom.
The projects also included the rehabilitation of the archaeological sites in Al-Jouf Region, including five sites in Skaka Province and another two in Domat-Al-Jandal Province.