Visitors to Saudi Spent $11.99 Billion in Q1 of 2024

Saudi Arabia has witnessed a 22.9% increase in visitor spending in the first quarter of 2024 compared to 2023, with total expenditures surpassing $11.99 billion, Saudi’s Tourism Ministry’s dashboard revealed.

Additionally, the Kingdom earned $6.39 billion, reflecting a growth of over 46% compared to the same period in 2023. Preliminary data from the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) on the balance of payments indicated that travellers from the Kingdom spent approximately $5.59 billion during the same timeframe.

The increase in inbound visitors’ spending in the Kingdom marks another milestone in the ongoing success of its tourism sector. In 2023, the Kingdom topped the UN Tourism list for the highest growth rate in both international tourist numbers and tourism receipts among the world’s leading destinations, compared to 2019.

This achievement highlights the efforts of the Ministry of Tourism and other components of the Saudi Tourism Ecosystem in promoting the tourism sector and contributing to the national economy’s growth which is a key aspect of the National Tourism Development Strategy. The released documents have confirmed the effectiveness of the efforts by the Tourism Ecosystem to position the sector as a global leader.

This has been achieved through the implementation of best practices in tourism development, the enhancement of tourism services and products, and ongoing collaboration with all government entities to support the development of the Kingdom’s tourism sector.

In 2023, Saudi Arabia has witnessed an influx in inbound tourism as the Kingdom welcomed 27.4 million international tourists in 2023 — up 64.8% y-o-y, statistics from the Ministry’s dashboard showed.

Tourist spending from both domestic and inbound tourism also increased 24.3% y-o-y to $68.09 billion over the same period, with domestic tourists accounting for $30.47 billion and inbound tourists spending around $37.61 billion during the year, the ministry’s statistics indicated.

As many as 8.6 million tourists came from neighbouring Gulf countries, accounting for 31.5% of all inbound tourists. These tourists spent a little over $4 billion in the Kingdom — around 10.6% of all inbound tourist spending.

Tourists from Asia were a close second at 7.9 million tourists, but spent the most in the country at $14.68 billion. Touists from wider GCC region (other countries in the Middle East) were the second-highest spenders at $32.9 million.

Inbound tourist numbers peaked in December, with 2.9 million people landing in the Kingdom and spending $2.82 billion during the last month of the year. Spending, however, peaked in June with a total of $8.07 billion in spending from the 2.85 million inbound tourists during the summer month, the Saudi Ministry said.

Religious tourism took the lion’s share of tourist spending and visits, with 11.6 million pilgrims spending $20.72 billion during their visits. As many as 1.9 million tourists visited the Kingdom as part of their businesses and spent $3.41 billion throughout the year.

New Target Set

It may be recalled that Saudi Arabia, which targeted to receive 100 million tourists by 2030 has achieved the same ahead of schedule in 2023 and has revised the figure to achieve 150 million tourists by 2030. The latest include 80 million domestic travellers and the remaining international travellers.

The ministry also launched a programme in May to make it easier for foreign and domestic investors to get licenses for a range of activities, with fees and procedures pegged to the type and scale of operations in the hospitality sector.

The government is investing some $800 billion into the tourism sector and involve private sector under which the Kingdom plans to build new destinations, including futuristic city NEOM, Line, the Red Sea Project, Diriyah, and Qiddiya, among others.