JEDDAH: The future tourism sector in Saudi Arabia will be a blend of domestic and international investments, as the country aims to be among the top five global tourism destinations by the end of this decade, according to Mahmoud Abdulhadi, deputy minister for investment attraction, Ministry of Tourism.
In an exclusive interview with Arab News on the sidelines of the 116th Executive Council of the UN World Tourism Organization, Abdulhadi revealed that people are conservative regarding cross-border investments in the aftermath of the pandemic.
He, however, clarified that the Kingdom is emerging as a destination that attracts foreign investments.
“Post pandemic, people are a little bit more conservative internationally in terms of cross-border investment. But we are proving to be a destination attracting quite a decent amount of interest. And now we’re working on converting that interest into actual investments,” Abdulhadi told Arab News.
He further noted: “Within the Kingdom, we have been very focused on making sure that we are building the right ecosystem to attract the right amount of investment and reforming it in a way that is beneficial from a visitor and investor experience perspective.”
Abdulhadi added that the private sector drives the global tourism sector. He expects a similar transformation in the Kingdom, where large private entities and small- and medium-sized enterprises also get a chance to contribute their part to the tourism industry.
“We want to move from what we have today, at least within the Kingdom where the private sector runs the tourism sector, on its own two feet. So we are keen on large private sector investment to come in. But we’re also cognizant that the whole sector is built on small- and medium-sized enterprises,” added Abdulhadi.
The deputy minister added that significant hotel operators in the Kingdom will dramatically increase the number of room keys by 2025, as the Kingdom is steadily progressing toward achieving the goals outlined in Vision 2030.
“The major global operators will dramatically increase the number of room keys that we have in the Kingdom. We are looking at over 50,000 room keys entering the market by 2025. This is a major achievement,” he added.
Abdulhadi also noted that the FIFA Football World Cup in November could also attract tourists to the Kingdom, especially in Al-Ahsa, due to its proximity to Qatar.
Reaffirming the goals outlined in Vision 2030, Abdulhadi added that the Kingdom aims to generate 10 percent of the gross domestic product from the tourism sector.
He also confirmed that the Kingdom wants to attract over 100 million visitors by the end of this decade and create an additional 1 million jobs in the sector.