In a new episode of Marketplace Middle East, CNN\u2019s Eleni Giokos explores how Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil diversification plans are opening doors for those in the private sector, with hotel and hospitality brands capitalising on the country\u2019s burgeoning tourism industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Religious tourism has long been a major driver for Saudi Arabia\u2019s economy, but the government is now targeting growth in its wider travel and tourism industry. The Kingdom\u2019s Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al-Khateeb speaks about the diversification strategy, \u201cWe have 1.7 billion Muslims who want to come and visit the two holy cities. This is good thing and therefore we will continue to receive them, we\u2019ll continue to serve them. We have announced our target to upgrade and to increase the capacity to cater for 30 million by 2030. And this is a very, very big number. No one can compete with Saudi Arabia on this market. However, it is in our interest to push leisure, business, visit family and friends, and other various purposes like wellness, medical and so forth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saudi Arabia announced its tourism visa in 2019, and Al-Khateeb says numbers have increased since then, \u201cThe international arrivals last year hit a record number of 27 million and our target is to reach to 70 million international arrivals by 2030, which will put Saudi Arabia as one of the top five largest countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With this projected increase in tourists, the hospitality sector is expected to grow too. Brands including hotel operator Hilton have been expanding significantly across the Kingdom. Hilton\u2019s President in the Middle East and Africa, Guy Hutchinson, says the company plans to quadruple its presence in the region\u2019s fastest-growing economy, \u201cSaudi is one of the most dynamic tourism pipelines in the world. Without a doubt. I don\u2019t think there are too many economies around the world that have the tourism sector as such a focus in terms of its part to play in the future of GDP. So, it\u2019s a phenomenal space and we are seeing that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hutchinson tells Giokos that religious travel is a significant area of growth, but that general tourism across the country is also increasing, \u201cReligious tourism is a very important part of the overall numbers into Saudi Arabia without a doubt. But we\u2019re seeing significant growth all across the kingdom because not just in those spaces, but across primary cities, secondary cities. And there\u2019s so much opportunity all the way across the segmentation of the hotels brands that we\u2019re able to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a new episode of Marketplace Middle East, CNN\u2019s Eleni Giokos explores how Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil diversification plans are opening doors for those in the private sector, with hotel and hospitality brands capitalising on the country\u2019s burgeoning tourism industry. Religious tourism has long been a major driver for Saudi Arabia\u2019s economy, but the government is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17993,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17990\/revisions\/17993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}