Secretary General of the Supreme Commission for Tourism in Saudi Arabia Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz has unveiled the Kingdom's 20-year strategic plan for the development of tourism.
As member of a large delegation to the annual meeting of the governors of the IMF and World Bank Group, Prince Sultan 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.
Prince Sultan 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 five-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 also reinforced 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. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
