“A national antiquities exhibition will be opened at the Louvre Museum in Paris on July 12 and it will be the first of Saudi antiquities exhibitions worldwide. Exhibitions will be held in the United States, Germany, Greece and Japan,” said SCTA Chairman Prince Sultan bin Salman while addressing a periodic meeting of the Kingdom's envoys in foreign countries at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh.

"Today's major challenge before the Kingdom, which is sitting on the top of huge treasures of history, antiquities, culture and heritage, is to present its novel image reflecting its original culture," said Prince Sultan.

The prince added that he signed new agreements to set up large museums in the Kingdom with the aim of projecting the cultural heritage, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Friday.

While stressing the economic significance of domestic tourism, the prince said the SCTA was making efforts to attract domestic tourists to the wide-ranging tourist attractions in the country.

Along with the rise of the Kingdom economically and politically, its historical and cultural importance has also grown, the prince said in his address.

“The SCTA has been striving to highlight the Kingdom's historical and cultural heritage including ancient trade routes that passed through the Kingdom,” the prince said.

The SCTA is currently working on identifying, documenting and protecting historical sites in the Kingdom. It has also charted plans to develop tourist resorts in such a way that special features of mountains, coastal regions and deserts could be incorporated in them.

“The SCTA has been signing agreements of cooperation with a number of the government’s financing funds to promote small and medium tourism projects and identifying and removing obstacles in tourist investments apart from conducting studies on the tendency of rising prices in tourism services,” the prince said.

He added that the SCTA was striving to establish a company called the Domestic Tourism Development Holding Co. and develop investment portfolios for tourism projects and floating them for investors in different parts of the country.

He said the SCTA would also sign agreements with municipalities and the Ministry of Agriculture and other ministries to launch eight tourist projects.