JEDDAH – The Interior Minister Prince Naif, who is also the chairman of the board of directors of the Supreme Commission for Tourism (SCT), stressed the important role the tourism commission is playing to boost tourism in cooperation with various government departments and regional administrations, the Saudi Press Agency reported yesterday.
In a press statement following the 14th session of the SCT’s board of directors here, Prince Naif called on various government departments to make more efforts to cooperate with the commission in the promotion of tourism in the Kingdom.
Prince Naif dismissed the presence of an historical object similar to Egypt’s legendary Sphinx in Hail as media speculation.
The meeting discussed the extra arrangements made in various parts of the Kingdom to make tourism a resounding success this summer. The meeting also reviewed the report submitted by SCT’s Secretary-General Prince Sultan ibn Salman on SCT’s performance in the past year and its need to achieve the objectives of the Kingdom’s tourism strategy.
The decisions taken by the SCT meeting includes among many things the approval for the first tourist investment expo to be held next March, development of heritage villages and sites and regulations governing donations to the commission based on the relevant clauses in the commission’s regulations.
The meeting also approved the new organizational structure of the commission’s secretariat. It ordered the completion of the second stage of the studies of the tourism security plan prepared by the general secretariat in collaboration with the Interior Ministry. The board endorsed the tourism promotion strategies for Tabuk, Qasim and the Northern Border Region.
Other decisions of the SCT board includes the draft for the tourism development strategy of the Red Sea zone, the decision to improve the service centers on the provincial roads, coordination between the SCT and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in the matter of developing tourism related sectors and classifying hotels and furnished apartments and the licensing regulations for tourist organizers.
The meeting also discussed the report on the Tourism Manpower Development Project including the project for training workers for the tourism sector in addition to the national strategy to develop the tourism-based handicraft industry.
It also discussed the higher authority’s order to convene an international tourism and traditional craft conference in Riyadh in Novveber and the first tourism forum of the Muslim countries to be held in Jeddah in September.
Prince Sultan ibn Salman, Cultural and Information Minister Iyad Madani, Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf, Economy and Planning Minister Khaled Al-Gosaibi, Education Minister Abdullah Al-Obaid, Health Minister Hamad Al-Manie also attended the meeting.
