In the 1990’s, Saudi Arabia highlighted global tourism in all national development plans as a way to raise revenue and employ locals. Though a latecomer to the industry, the Saudi state built hospitality schools, initiated a new Ministry of Tourism, and forged networks of international tour operators. But just as tourism began to “take off,” the bottom fell out on September 11, 2001. The lucrative potential of well-heeled consumers from the United States, Western Europe and Japan collapsed overnight. This raised critical questions in the aftermath. What happens to the billions of dollars invested in transportation networks, hotel accommodations, site restoration and the hospitality industry? What happens to the extensive network of crony capitalism that had been forged? I identify three transitions that went into effect to protect these economic investments and political networks. They are, first, a shift from global consumers to local and regional tourists; second, a shift from commercial groups to religious tourists, and third, a spatial shift from site- seeing in urban centers to natural adventures. Tourism is now justified as a means of “teaching our youth about their heritage” and “extending hajj and umrah throughout the land of the holy cities.” That is a far cry from the difficult, cross-cultural global openings that were championed before political crisis. The literature on tourism and crisis emphasizes methods to rebuild economic profit. It sidesteps complex political questions that have sociopolitical repercussions. This analysis reinserts the explicitly political and contextual. These three transitions do indeed serve to protect massive infrastructural investment. As importantly, I argue that each of these transitions provides an avenue by which to avoid the complicated and tense encounters between citizens and international tourists, and among domestic elite. Changing the people (the consumers), plot (the narrative) and place (the sites of encounter) has softened the politics of tourism. I demonstrate that, because of place, Saudi Arabia was buffered from harsh realities and the zero-sum decision-making that would have prompted serious dissension among elites invested in the tourism sector. Analysis is based on extensive involvement in the tourist opening in Saudi Arabia in 2000 and on current interviews with Saudi tour guides, American tour operators and managers around the world, especially in Saudi Arabia. I conclude with brief instructive comparisons to Egypt and other Gulf states after the uprisings.