Jeddah: Saudi Arabia will soon introduce a new visa scheme for expatriates in the Gulf, Tourism Minister Ahmed Al Khatib said. The minister said tourist visas launched by the country in 2019 are still in place and there are no special restrictions on those coming for tourism.
Al-Khatib made the announcement in an interview with CNBC’s Arabic Channel. By 2021, the country will have reached 50 lakh foreign visitors with 64 million domestic trips. He said the country’s tourism sector had shrunk by 40 per cent during the Kovid epidemic.
The Albujairi area of the Diriya project is expected to open this year. In 2019, employment in the tourism sector in the country was three per cent. He said the target was to reach 10 per cent by 2030.
Since 2019, employment in Saudi Arabia has increased by 15 percent to 820,000. They aim to spend more than $ 200 billion on the sector by 2030. Al-Khatib said the tourism sector’s contribution to GDP was 3 percent in September 2019 and would reach 10 percent by 2030.