Saudi Arabia opens e-visa system to South Africans

Nothing could be further from the image most people have of Saudi Arabia than a winter wonderland. And yet the country is building exactly that within the mountains of Neom, its €461 billion ($500 billion) ‘city of the future’.

Developers plan for the whole site to run on 100 per cent solar energy and send zero waste to landfill. They’re also capping the amount of visitors at one million a year.

Google teamed up with South Africa’s tourism department Monday to boost travel marketing efforts after a government inquiry concluded in July that Google’s practices impede competition.

Saudi Arabia’s two national carriers, Riyadh Air and Saudia have entered a partnership that will start with a codeshare agreement, but go on to include much more collaborative efforts. The pair of Kingdom carriers announced the deal at the Dubai Airshow taking place in the emirate this week.

Trevor Noah, world-renowned comedian and 2024 Grammy nominee for best comedy album, has taken on a new title: ‘chief tourism comedian for South Africa.’ 

With Saudi Arabia being the world’s fastest growing new year-round tourism destination, STA has announced it will enter into a major new partnership with RX Global - following a formal signing after WTM London - which will see STA become the first-ever ‘Global Travel Partner’ of the World Travel Market (WTM) tradeshow events.

Brazil and South Africa have signed an agreement to foster collaboration between the two countries in their tourism initiatives.

Saudia, the national flag carrier of Saudi Arabia, is participating in the prestigious World Travel Market (WTM) event, scheduled to take place in London from 6 to 8 November 2023. The WTM serves as a significant platform for engaging discussions on tourism development and will include the participation of various decision-makers and experts in the travel industry. Through this event, Saudia will showcase the latest products, services, and initiatives of its new era, aimed at enhancing the guests’ travel experience and aligning its efforts to connect the world to the Kingdom, supporting the tourism, finance, business, and Hajj and Umrah sectors.

On a crispy late-September morning under blue skies, the grassy hills of Custer State Park are surely the last place you’d ever expect to find thousands of fans screaming and hollering for their favorite team, whether members be of the bipedal or four-legged sort. With dozens of cowboys and cowgirls herding some 1,400-1,500 grunting and bellowing bison through the verdant terrain and into corrals, South Dakota’s annual Buffalo Roundup has become a huge and thrilling spectator event.

Saudi Arabia has laid out its ambition to build a hotel of such magnitude, allure and luxury, that travelers from the world over will come to see it. In Dubai, the emirate has the two Atlantis resorts, between them almost 2,000 rooms. In the US, historic hotels such as The Plaza sit in New York and mega-resorts fill the Las Vegas strip. But in Saudi a set of three boutique hotels will be the “global bucket list” destination of choice.

Saudi Arabia’s super-city of Neom has created its own investment fund. The Neom Investment Fund will largely focus on mergers and acquisitions and venture capital in tech startups, said the organization. The Neom Investment Fund will also work with global organizations through joint ventures to boost its many sectors, including travel and tourism.

Some countries, including the United States, have yet to make a full tourism recovery from the pandemic, and lengthy waits for visitor visas are one reason why. Several travel executives have argued that those long waits have hurt the ability to attract visitors.