Saudi Arabia unveils 20 year strategic tourism development plan

His Royal Highness, Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Secretary General of the Supreme Commission for Tourism in Saudi Arabia, has unveiled the Kingdom's 20 year strategic plan for the development of tourism, designed to make country a major attraction among tourists domestically and internationally.

As member of a large delegation to the annual meeting of the governors of the IMF and World Bank Group, His Royal Highness presented a paper to delegates entitled, "Tourism Development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia."

In it he pointed out that the Kingdom is already more than capable of handling mass tourism. He revealed statistics showing that 57.6 million domestic trips are currently registered per year, in addition to 7.5 million inbound trips. For the year 2020, he projected a combined total of 141 million trips, which in turn could lead to the creation of between 1.5 and 2.3 million tourism-related jobs.

HRH Prince Sultan bin Salman stated that Saudi Arabia's main drivers in developing the tourism industry are: economic diversification, creating new job opportunities, achieving economic equilibrium, attracting investments from the private sector, and conservation of the cultural and environmental heritage.

In outlining the Kingdom's 20 years strategic plan for the development of tourism, he explained that the strategic plan would be subdivided to tactical 5-year plans.

"The current plan focuses on restructuring the whole sector and reinvigorating the tourism industry," he said. "Toward this end, the Supreme Commission for Tourism (SCT) has initiated a plan to establish strong and real partnership among the public sector, private sector, and the society at large. The Supreme Council for Tourism actively helped establishing provincial tourism bodies, in addition to associations for hotels and travel agents."

Prince Sultan bin Salman also reinforced that the fact that SCT had an important role to play in assuring the private sector of the viability of projects and generally encouraging the development of tourism in Saudi Arabia. He also vowed to work closely with other partners in the elimination of as many hurdles as possible to facilitate the free-flow of investment in the tourism sector in the Kingdom.

The SCT tourism drive was also boosted by a major presence at an adjoining exhibition in the World Trade Center in Dubai. The Saudi pavilion, entitled "Tourism Industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia", included 56 exhibitors, from both the public and the private sectors.

The joint meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group, which bring together representatives from 184 countries, discusses this year a host of regional and global economic issues, including: investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia, The role of business management in peacemaking and democratization, water resources: from scarcity to abundance, treasury management in oil-exporting countries, and Islamic finance systems.