The Generation Redesigning Value
How Gen Z and Gen Alpha Are Redefining Culture, Commerce, and Community Across the GCC+ Cluster
A New Generation, A New Logic of Value
Every generation changes how the world consumes.
But some change why we consume.
Across the GCC+ Cluster — the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Egypt, and Jordan — two generations, Gen Z (1997–2012) and Gen Alpha (2013–2024), are quietly rewriting the region’s cultural and economic script.
They make up more than 60% of the population, with an estimated $250 billion in annual spending power. Yet their influence extends beyond purchasing power — they are redefining meaning.
They seek authenticity, identity, and purpose, experiences that are grounded in local culture yet meet global standards of quality, design, and expectation.
They are equally inspired by Amman’s music scene and Seoul’s design language; by Dubai’s ambition and Copenhagen’s simplicity.
Their worldview fuses regional roots with global reach — demanding that brands, cities, and institutions reflect both.
Globally, about 60–65% of Gen Z prefer spending on experiences rather than goods, and this behavioral pattern is strongest across the GCC+ Cluster.
They are not just reshaping markets — they are redesigning how value is created across culture, commerce, and community.
| Gen Z and Alpha don’t buy to have — they buy to belong.
1. From Culture as Content to Culture as Capital
Across the GCC+ Cluster, creativity has become infrastructure.
In Riyadh, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi, cultural industries are now viewed as strategic sectors of national transformation. In Cairo, digital artists and filmmakers are exporting stories that move faster than products.
And in Jordan, creativity is maturing from boutique expression to national advantage.
Amman’s design studios, fashion collectives, and creative entrepreneurs are defining an identity rooted in authenticity and purpose. Jordan’s advantage lies in its human scale — education, creativity, and entrepreneurship coexist in compact systems that enable innovation.
Insight
The creative economy across the GCC+ Cluster is shifting from an industry to an ecosystem.
The next phase isn’t about cultural production but about creative systems — design studios linked to venture funds, public spaces evolving into innovation districts, and cross-market collaborations that merge art, technology, and purpose.
| Creativity here is no longer an output — it’s becoming an operating model.
2. The Rise of the Experience Generation
Gen Z and Alpha were born into economies of access, not ownership.
They invest in moments that move them, not possessions that define them — but they expect those moments to be both authentic and world-class.
They no longer accept the tradeoff between local flavor and global quality. They want a meal in Cairo that feels like home yet rivals Tokyo in execution; a boutique in Amman that honors Arab aesthetics but communicates with Milan’s design precision.
This generation demands experiences that are rooted in identity and elevated in design.
Regional Dynamics
- Gulf States: Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading the shift from oil to experience economies. The Saudi Tourism Development Fund’s $15 billion pipeline targets 100 million annual visitors by 2030, while Dubai Destinations and Abu Dhabi Culture Summit blend storytelling and place-making as strategic growth levers.
- Egypt: With its cultural depth, Egypt is transforming heritage into living experience — digital museums, Nile eco-travel, and creative festivals are aligning authenticity with innovation.
- Jordan: Few nations capture authentic experience like Jordan. Beyond Petra and Wadi Rum, Amman has become a creative hospitality hub. In Aqaba, Ayla Oasis redefines sustainable tourism — merging natural beauty, architecture, and culture into a blueprint for experiential living. It shows how smaller economies in the GCC+ Cluster can compete through identity over scale
Insight
Tourism across the GCC+ Cluster is evolving from infrastructure to narrative architecture.
Competitiveness will depend less on five-star hotels and more on five-sense experiences — emotional, human, and grounded in story.
| The next traveler isn’t a tourist — they’re a participant in a story.
3. Retail, Luxury & Lifestyle Reimagined
Retail in the GCC+ Cluster is transforming from transaction to theater.
Gen Z and Alpha don’t shop to acquire — they shop to express, to align, to belong.
Regional Dynamics
- Gulf Markets: The region is now the world’s fastest-growing luxury destination, with Bain & Company projecting 14% annual growth through 2030. Concept stores, hybrid cafés, and immersive showrooms are turning retail into cultural experience.
- Egypt & Jordan: Local brands are redefining lifestyle identity. In Amman, fashion and wellness collectives are building purpose-driven micro-communities, while Egypt’s thrift and circular-fashion movements are redefining modern sustainability.
- Digital Layer: Social commerce is exploding. In Saudi Arabia, ≈70% of Gen Z consumers discover new brands through social media — where discovery, engagement, and belonging merge.
Insight
Lifestyle across the GCC+ Cluster is moving from consumption to curation.
Brands that integrate authenticity, sustainability, and personalization will thrive — because a purchase is no longer the end of interaction, but the beginning of identity.
| The most valuable asset in retail today isn’t the product — it’s the feeling it creates.
4. System Redesign — From Market Evolution to Model Reinvention
The threads connecting creativity, tourism, and lifestyle are not separate sectors — they’re nodes in a single system of experience powered by authenticity, aspiration, and design.
Globally, 65% of Gen Z say they’ll spend more on what truly matters — travel, culture, and self-growth. In the GCC+ Cluster, that sentiment is magnified by rising prosperity, digital fluency, and policy alignment.
The opportunity isn’t more growth — it’s smarter integration: designing systems that transform culture into capital, authenticity into innovation, and creativity into economic infrastructure.
Macro Signals
- Creative and cultural sectors could add $100 billion to regional GDP by 2030.
- Tourism and entertainment already contribute >12% of GCC GDP, and are projected to double.
- Youth-led ventures in design, fashion, and travel are among the fastest-scaling SMEs in the Arab world.
| The GCC+ Cluster stands on the threshold of an economy rooted not in extraction, but in expression.
5. Designing What’s Next
This generational shift is not demographic — it’s design-driven.
For policymakers: enable creativity as infrastructure.
For investors: treat culture as an asset class.
For enterprises: move from value chains to value communities.
For cities: evolve from places of work to places of meaning.
The future of the GCC+ Cluster won’t be built in factories — it will be designed in studios, curated through culture, and lived through experiences.
When the world looks for what’s next in human-centered growth, it may well look from the GCC+ Cluster — not to it.
| They aren’t escaping the region — they’re reimagining it.
| Rooted in identity. Elevated by design. Global by instinct.
| And that’s the new economy — authored by a generation that belongs everywhere, yet begins here.
This article was produced by Rezeq Asali, Managing Partner at hea Global.
hea Global is a strategy and innovation advisory boutique shaping the intersection of strategy, sustainability, and venture thinking. We help organizations, governments, and ecosystems design what’s next — translating human potential into systems of growth.
