A new visa regime will be introduced for GCC residents soon, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al Khateeb said. In an interview with CNBC Arabic, he said that the tourist visas launched by the country in 2019 still exists. He added that there are no specific restrictions for tourists coming in as of now.
Al Khateeb also said that 64 million domestic trips were made in the country during 2021, while the number of visitors from abroad reached 5 million last year.
Elaborating on the same, he said: “The sector’s contribution to job creation was 3 percent in 2019 and we target to reach 10 per cent by 2030.”
However, he said that the tourism sector shrank by 40 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The job sector in the Kingdom grew by 15 per cent to 820,000 jobs between 2019 and now,” he added. “We aim to spend more than $200 billion by 2030.”
According to Al-Khateeb, the tourism sector’s contribution to the Kingdom’s GDP was 3 per cent when the tourism strategy was launched in September 2019.
