‘It’s one of the wonders of the world’: How the entrepreneur who transformed Canary Wharf is now helping to do the same for Saudi tourism

hen George Iacobescu began growing the docklands of Canary Wharf in east London the mid-Nineteen Eighties it was a morass of empty warehouses, rusted cranes and polluted docks.

Now it’s a gleaming rival monetary district to the mighty Metropolis of London. Earlier than Covid struck it was internet hosting some 120,000 employees a day in its glass towers.

In a method Sir George – who was knighted in 2011 – made that dockland desert bloom.

That’s one of many causes the Saudi authorities got here knocking at his door after they conceived the thought of turning its northern area of AlUla into the center of a brand new hub of heritage tourism within the nation.

It’s a part of Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman’s Imaginative and prescient 2030 challenge, which goals to modernise Saudi Arabia, open the dominion as much as the world and diversify its economic system away from an over-reliance on fossil fuels.

Sir George, the manager chairman of Canary Wharf Group, was requested to sit down on the advisory board for the Royal Fee for AlUla, which is charged with overseeing planning within the area.

Different members embody senior figures from the humanities, tourism and politics, together with representatives of Sotheby’s and UNESCO.

One distinction between AlUla and Canary Wharf within the early Nineteen Eighties is that the previous, which sits round 1,000km north west of Riyadh, is already a UNESCO world heritage website.

The traditional city of Hegra was the primary southern outpost of the Nabataean kingdom, which lasted from its founding within the third century BC till it was conquered by the Romans in 106AD.

The location consists of 100 tombs carved from sandstone outcrops.

It additionally hosts even older archaeological websites with spectacular rock artwork and an historical oasis.

“The fantastic thing about the world is untold, it’s unimaginable surroundings,” says Sir George, talking by phone from his workplace within the Wharf’s Canada Tower.

“Truthfully, it’s one of many wonders of the world. It’s like strolling within the antiquities room of the British museum for 2 days.”

And Sir George, a former trustee of the British Museum, is enthusiastic in regards to the design of the AlUla challenge, which plans to herald two million vacationers a 12 months by constructing new museums, galleries, accommodations and transport hyperlinks.

“The masterplan is one thing that probably the most superior international locations on the planet can be happy with,” he says. “Every thing begins with masterplan.”

This vote of confidence within the challenge from so revered a determine in world actual property and finance as Sir George can be particularly welcomed by its Saudi originators – particularly if it helps encourage international funding.

Although what particularly enthuses Sir George, he stresses, is its sense of duty to the native inhabitants – one thing he says it has in widespread with Canary Wharf, which sits within the comparatively disadvantaged London borough of Tower Hamlets.

“There’s numerous consideration to group,” he says. “They take a look at easy methods to carry the individuals of the world up, easy methods to give them a greater dwelling, easy methods to give them jobs. It’s considerate and really respectful of the encircling space. It’s very enlightened, it’s run by renaissance individuals.”

“It brings Saudi into the twenty first if not the twenty second century – however nonetheless respecting the historical past.”

The masterplan goals to create 38,000 new jobs.

AlUla additionally has a significant emphasis on environmental sustainability. There are plans for a 46km low-carbon tramway and 50 per cent of energy sourced from renewables by 2035. It additionally features a dedication to “round economic system ideas”.

It additionally embody mass tree planting and a dedication that 80 per cent of the area can be designated as a nature reserve.

The hazard of huge visionary tasks, after all, is that they get imposed from the highest down.

However Sir George says he’s not involved the challenge is being thrust onto an unwilling native inhabitants.

He recounts a visit to the area the place he stopped his automobile and went into one of many native homes at random.

“The backyard was a bit oasis and the individuals have been sitting on the bottom. I went in unannounced and stated ‘good day – can I have a look round? I need to see how regular individuals dwell’,” he remembers.

“They have been so good and so welcoming, the children got here with fruit.”

Sir George, who grew up in Communist Romania, provides: “I do know what a staged reception is and this wasn’t.”

By way of defending the integrity of the archaeological websites he provides that “UNESCO is preserving a really shut eye”.

It’ll, he says, be “prime quality” tourism. “You’re not going to have scorching canine on the road”.

However the timeframe for the $15bn challenge can be somewhat tight. Fifteen years to develop a heritage tourism hub the scale of Belgium and entice billions of {dollars} of international funding is formidable.

Sir George describes it as “doable” and factors out that some transport infrastructure within the type of an expanded airport and new roads has already been put in place.

However he provides that “you by no means end one thing like that – it’s going to maintain growing.”

The Nabataeans have been the creators of the immediately recognisable Treasury in Petra, Jordan – a classical façade carved right into a sandstone rock face. Petra welcomed greater than 1 million guests in 2019, confirming that mass tourism within the area is feasible.

However Jordan has lengthy been a a lot much less religiously conservative regime than Saudi and has attracted much less worldwide controversy in recent times.

Requested why individuals in London, or Paris or Berlin ought to take an curiosity in AlUla and take into consideration visiting Sir George stresses the area’s world historic significance.

“After I was a trustee of the British Museum I requested the query: who do you report back to, reply to? And the reply was: to the world. It’s the identical factor right here – it’s a museum to the world.

“If you wish to have every week of serenity, be at peace with your self and take a look at tradition, it’s an excellent place - it’s a spot to see the historical past of the world.”