Saleem Bin Salem Al-Harbi said domestic tourism is a main element in the plan to reduce dependency on oil and provide job opportunities for Saudis. “Tourism has become an important sector that offers job opportunities to young Saudis. The latest statistics confirmed that about 490,000 jobs were created in the tourism sector in 2010. The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiques (SCTA) confirmed that 130,000 Saudis joined the tourism sector in 2010,” said Al-Harbi.

Businessmen highlighted the importance of the Jeddah summer festival in increasing investment opportunities in the tourism sector and creating competition between companies. The latest statistic issued by SCTA confirmed tourists in the Kingdom spent on average SR268 million in 2010, compared to SR168 million in 2009.

The statistics revealed that Saudi tourism depends mainly on local and GCC tourists.

“The tourism sector is developing rapidly worldwide and particularly in the Kingdom because of new rules and regulations that encourage private companies to invest in this domain and to compete in providing the best services to tourists,” said Al-Harbi.

According to Al-Harbi, the tourism sector is expected to become one of the most important sources of revenue and is expected to generate more than SR40 billion in the future.

“Saudi tourism is growing rapidly which is why we are expecting this sector to provide more than 90,000 additional jobs by 2014,” said Al-Harbi.

Khaled Al-Harthi, head of JCCI’s hospitality committee, confirmed that the committee is working to improve its Saudization levels and offer more job opportunities to citizens in the hospitality and hotel sectors.

“We are working with a private company to classify restaurants in Jeddah and create a recruitment plan for Saudis in cooperation with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Human Resources Development Fund,” said Al-Harthi.

“We decided to hold an annual Saudi hospitality day to discuss Saudization constraints in the sector and find solutions and regulations.”