Saudi Arabia aims to be a tourism power with multi-million dollar investment

Saudi Arabia announced this Tuesday an initiative to promote its incipient tourism sector and attract investments worth up to 42 billion Saudi riyals (US$11.2 billion) aimed at turning the country into “a world tourism power”said the Saudi minister of Tourism, Ahmed al Khatib.

This initiative aims to attract private investments “local to international” in tourist places throughout the Kingdom and “drive a projected annual increase in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of 16 billion rials (US$ 4,300 million)” from now to 2030.

The project, dubbed the Tourism Investment Enabler Program (TIEP), includes legislative reforms in the granting of tourism licenses for multiple types and scales of operations and a reduction in annual government fees by almost a 22%“with the aim of reducing them even further in the near future.”

In total, the country’s authorities plan to create “42,000 new rooms and approximately 120,000 jobs.”

“With the impetus of Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia is moving towards the goal of becoming a global tourism power, where the Saudi tourism sector plays an essential role in economic diversification”said Minister Al Khatib.

According to him, in 2023, “increased a 390% the demand for tourist activity licenses” in the kingdom and hopes that, in the next decade, Saudi Arabia “is positioned as the main global investor in the tourism sector.”

The Persian Gulf monarchy has already achieved its goal of attracting 100 million tourists annually 7 years before 2030, a figure that it intends to increase to 150 million.

In its Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has announced and developed multi-million dollar initiatives in almost all sectors, especially tourism, logistics and transportation, to diversify its economy, heavily dependent on crude oil revenues.