Saudi Arabia sticks by 2030 tourism targets despite pandemic

Saudi Arabia sticks by 2030 tourism targets despite pandemic
Saudi Arabia sticks by 2030 tourism targets despite pandemic

Thank you for reading the news about Saudi Arabia sticks by 2030 tourism targets despite pandemic and now with the details

Jeddah - Yasmine El Tohamy - LONDON: Saudi Arabia is sticking by its target of attracting 100 million visits by 2030 despite the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on its fledgling tourism sector.

Saudi Tourism Authority Adviser Mahmoud Abdulhadi said that about a half a million tourism visas had been issued between last autumn and the arrival of the pandemic in the Kingdom in the spring, which brought international air travel to a halt.

“Whenever there is a crisis of sorts (such as the coronavirus pandemic), tourism is probably the first to suffer but also the first to rebound, so this gives us a lot of hope that our plans will come to fruition,” Abdulhadi told the virtually hosted BMG Economic Forum on Wednesday.

He said that the tourism authority was sticking to its long term targets but that it was difficult to give short term projections about tourism visits as the global economy emerges from lockdown.

“After the pandemic we are going to be working very hard to make sure all of our destinations are ready to meet those 2030 targets. You will see a lot of activity,” he said.

Saudi Arabia is investing billions of dollars in developing its tourism infrastructure with a focus on some 38 sites in seven key locations across the Kingdom.

Tourism chiefs recently announced the “Saudi Summer” initiative with the slogan “tanaffas,” which is Arabic for breathe.

The aim is to kickstart domestic tourism after its near paralysis as a result of the coronavirus lockdown.

These were the details of the news Saudi Arabia sticks by 2030 tourism targets despite pandemic for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.

It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Arab News and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.

NEXT China’s factory activity expands at fastest clip in 13 months, Caixin PMI shows