Inside Saudi Arabia’s $800 Billion Tourism Moonshot

The cultural capital of the United Arab Emirates will engage the most restless minds with its iconic galleries and museums, including the Louvre and, from 2025, the Guggenheim. Architecture fans can wander streets of opulent, statement-making Islamic structures, including the country’s largest mosque, while those looking for adventure will find thrills in abundance at the world’s biggest man-made surfing wave, plus an entire theme park built for speed junkies.

Over the last few centuries, not much has changed in the village of Shuwaymis, which lies 400 miles and a dusty seven-hour drive north of Jeddah. But in 2001, a Bedouin told local teacher Mahboub Habbas al-Rasheedi that he'd found an undiscovered cache of rock art while grazing his camels. Mahboub spent the next several days searching for the site and eventually found hundreds of petroglyphs emblazoned on a honey-hued escarpment, including depictions of oryx, ostriches, leopards, cheetahs, and lions.

Highly regarded for their annual Economic Impact Report highlighting the changes and growth taking place worldwide in the travel and tourism sector, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has revealed largely positive projections for travel and tourism investment of the G20 countries.

There’s a new luxury train on the horizon that is aiming to enter the pantheon of classic trains and iconic rail journeys like the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, the Royal Scotsman, and Africa’s Rovos Rail.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness will deliver the Keynote Address during the Live Celebration of Global Tourism Resilience Day on the final day of the second Global Tourism Resilience Day Conference. Minister Bartlett will also address the high-level summit. This year’s staging follows Jamaica’s efforts to bolster resilience in global tourism by proposing the official designation of February 17th as Global Tourism Resilience Day annually, which yielded great success, as the United Nations (UN) ratified the move last February to facilitate its observance globally. The much-anticipated conference will be attended by government ministers from several countries, policy advisors, academics, executives of several international organisations, international business leaders, among other key stakeholders. The event forms part of efforts by the Ministry of Tourism and its tourism partners, including the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC), to boost resilience in global tourism. The Prime Minister’s address will be followed by remarks by international speakers from Malaga, Spain, Kenya, and Saudi Arabia. Following a brief book launch, a Ministerial Round Table discussion will be held with UN Tourism Secretary-General H.E. Zurab Pololikashvili and representatives from across the globe.

Saudi Arabia’s tourism minister says the kingdom counted more than 100 million tourists in 2023 – the numbers show growth in visits from international travelers, but that it still has work to do to become a globally competitive destination.

Following the United Nations declaration of the first International Day of the Arabian Leopard, on 10 February the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) continues to expand its long-term mission to safeguard the ‘Critically Endangered’ Big Cat species from the physical world into the virtual.

Dubai saw 17 million visitors in 2023, the emirate’s best-ever year for tourism and the first year ahead of pre-pandemic numbers. The news was shared in a brief tweet by the city’s crown prince, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed.

Saudi Arabia will launch a dedicated visa for its World Expo in 2030, which will facilitate “seamless entry from plane to metro to Expo site,” states the Royal Commission for Riyadh City.

Red Sea Global, the project developer in Saudi Arabia, is building up its hotel business, and it’s backed by a fund with more money than the market values of Hilton, Marriott and Accor combined.

Lionel Messi is back promoting Saudi Arabia in a campaign that says it wants to dismantle “walls” of “misconception” and break “outdated stereotypes.”

Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, January 25. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.