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Saudi Arabia’s tourism push continues as the kingdom looks towards attracting as much as $80 billion in private investments to the burgeoning sector by 2030.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al-Khateeb revealed the kingdom was looking to share the financial burden as it follows through on its Vision 2030 master plan to attract 150 million tourists in six years.
“I want the private sector to represent the majority of investment,” Al-Khateeb told Bloomberg, adding that the goal is to raise $60 billion to $80 billion by 2030. “This is a very ambitious target.”
According to the Ministry of Tourism, Saudi Arabia hosted 106 million visitors in 2023, who contributed more than 250 billion riyals ($66.66 billion) to the country’s economy.
Saudi Arabia is counting on the middle-class population in India and China to boost international tourism numbers and sees the UK as an appealing market, Al-Khateeb further told Bloomberg, while adding that destinations requiring longer-haul flights of more than eight hours remained a challenge.
Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia launched an initiative to boost private investments in key tourism sites across the kingdom by 42 billion riyals ($11 billion) and drive a projected annual increase in the gross domestic product (GDP) of SAR 16 billion ($4 billion) by 2030.
The Tourism Investment Enabler Program (TIEP) aims to make it easier and more cost-effective to do business in the kingdom’s travel sector for international and local investors, a release stated.
Saudi Arabia further expects the initiative to significantly impact the socio-economic landscape, creating 42,000 new room keys and approximately 120,000 job opportunities.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has been heavily investing in its tourism sector as part of its Vision 2030 master plan, which includes an $800 billion investment to transform the travel landscape.
(Writing by Bindu Rai, editing by Daniel Luiz)
