Saudi Arabia has emerged as the leading country in the Middle East in terms of air traffic volume and visitor data.
“We want to make the Kingdom a preferable tourism destination to GCC countries,” said Hamad bin Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, assistant vice president of The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) for marketing.
He was speaking to Arab News on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in Dubai.
Saudi Arabia had a huge presence at the show.
More than 30 major Saudi companies took part in the event under the umbrella of SCTA.
The SCTA pavilion highlighted tourism potentials in the Kingdom in addition to investment opportunities.
Ways of increasing cooperation between GCC travel and tourism companies were discussed.
A workshop on designing and organizing tourism programs about Saudi tourism destinations for GCC citizens was part of the forum.
Delegates also explored the feasibility of regular commercial flights to GCC states, from destinations such as Taif, Abha, Al-Qassim and Hail.
SCTA sources said Haj and Umrah travel generated $ 16.5 billion for the Kingdom in 2012 and business tourism demand was also growing, particularly for Riyadh.
Tourist arrivals are forecast to grow at CAGR of 4 percent by 2022, driven by strong growth across all sectors.
Tourism is currently Saudi Arabia second largest industry and this has huge significance for the economy as $ 80 billion worth of investment into key infrastructure projects including airport expansion, railways and roads comes to fruition in the next 10 years.
Top tourism officials said SCTA had proposed a SR 5 billion fund to promote tourism in the Kingdom.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ATM, SCTA Chairman Prince Sultan bin Salman said the organization was looking to set up a fund to finance tourism projects, to encourage business people to invest in the sector. In a separate session, Prince Sultan said the Arabian Peninsula had always been a crossroads for different civilizations.
These days those roads are in the sky rather than on the ground, and the same role that Arabia has played in the past is now similarly happening with airline networks.
“The alliance between tourism and air transportation is very much a non-separable alliance, and it is very important to focus on aligning these two sectors to make places more accessible and affordable,” he said.
Amadeus air traffic analysis confirms Prince Sultan’s statement.
According to Amadeus statistics, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the leaders in the Middle East in terms of air traffic volume while Qatar demonstrated the strongest growth.
The three countries together represented more than 53 percent or 52.8 million of the total 99 million passengers whose point of departure originated from the Middle East in 2012.
Data indicates that Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar enjoyed an average growth rate of 10 percent in air traffic volume in 2012 as compared to the previous year, thus outpacing, by a large margin, the 2 percent growth experienced in the Middle East as a whole.
The figures show that Saudi Arabia leads the middle east air travel market, Qatar being the fastest expanding. Saudi Arabia remains the largest air travel market in the region.
The 25 million passengers who started their journey from the country accounted for 25 percent of the total passenger traffic in the Middle East in 2012.
The UAE followed a close second, commanding 23 percent of the regional market share and serving as the point of origin for 23.1 million passengers.
Representing 5 percent of the region`s air traffic market with 4.74 million travelers, Qatar led the way in terms of passenger volume growth. UAE emerges as the most prominent point of origin for intercontinental journeys, while Saudi volume is driven by domestic traffic.
In terms of regional traffic, the UAE was the most used point of origin for the 7.2 million travelers who flew within the region, followed by Saudi Arabia, which served as the point of origin for 6.1million travelers within the region.
EASIER VISA RULES
“Soon, we will announce new visa packages for travelers to the Kingdom,” Prince Sultan said, while addressing a forum at ATM.
The planned visa rules in Saudi Arabia will allow foreigners to take tours to certain historical and Islamic sites as tourists.
Prince Sultan said Saudi Arabia would start issuing visas called “Umrah-Plus” this year.
Abdullah S. Al Jehani, vice-president for marketing and programs at SCTA, commented: “Islamic tourism is not Saudi Arabia’s only focus. We focus our marketing on Saudi Arabia’s business activities such as exhibitions and antiquities.”
According to SCTA sources, Al-Uqair Tourism would be set up soon, with capital investments of SR 3 billion. The project is considered by many to be a major shift in tourism development.
Business Monitor International (BMI), an international industry consultant, says that the Kingdom is expected to host 15.8 million tourists by 2014.
GROWING HOSPITALITY SECTOR
The hospitality sector is showing strong signs of growth to keep up with rising in-flow of tourists.
Saudi Arabia is expected to deliver 1,182 new internationally branded hotels into the market by 2015, according to a Colliers International October 2012 market report, with potential for an additional 34,882 midscale hotel guest rooms after 2015, located in both primary and second tier cities.
Frontel for Hospitality Inc. will launch its property, the 1,350-key Frontel Village Hotel, Madinah, next year.
This will be followed in 2015 by the debut of a second Madina property, said Rushdi Sherwani, director of brand development.
The luxurious 650-room Frontel Hotel Al-Baiya will be situated in the heart of the city, and comprises two 10-story towers, with a footprint of 6,500 square meters, but affording 65,000 square meters of hotel space.
“Infrastructure growth within the Kingdom has created a wave of interest and investment into new tourism and business travel facilities. During ATM, we met with Haj and Umrah travel companies and other tour operators from the UAE, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka,” he added.
Sherwani said inbound visitor arrivals are also forecast to grow from 13 million in 2010 to 15.8 million by 2014, with the kingdom focusing its efforts on providing the necessary travel infrastructure to boost domestic, Haj and Umrah, and the fledgling inbound tourism sector, as it allocates $ 500 million to airport expansion and $ 7 billion investment into the new Jeddah airport.
Swiss-Belhotel International officials, meanwhile, said that they will open their 126-room Swiss-Belhotel in Riyadh by September 2014. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide announced the debut of its Four Points by Sheraton brand in Saudi Arabia. The Four Points by Sheraton Riyadh Khaldia will feature 376 guest rooms including 138 suites.
Hyatt Group will open two properties by the end of 2013. Within Hyatt’s pipeline are the 257-room, 37-suite Hyatt Regency Riyadh Olaya, and Hyatt Regency Makkah, offering 628 guest rooms.
“Over the last few years, the demand in the luxury market in Saudi Arabia has been very strong,” says Tareq Daoud, regional vice president, Global Sales— Middle East, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Southwest Asia.
OUT-BOUND TRAVELERS
Vikas Rustagi, regional director of India Tourism office in Dubai, said Saudi Arabia is a major main source market for inbound tourism in India.
In 2011, around 26,000 Saudi nationals visited India, registering a growth of over 12 percent over the previous year. “We have recently completed a major road show and campaign in Saudi Arabia,” he added.
“To increase the traffic, the Indian government has recently lifted the restriction of two-month gap for entry of foreign nationals between two visits,” he added.
Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority Chairman Mohamed Ali Al-Noman said Saudi Arabia had contributed the biggest chunk to Sharjah’s GCC tourism market with 195,462 Saudi tourists visiting the emirate in 2012, which is a whopping 96 percent increase over the previous year’s figure of 99,505. “Saudi market is our biggest contributor in the GCC region and thus most important for us,” he added.
Ras Al-Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (TDA) CEO Victor Louis said they had spotted a growing number of Saudi holidaymakers choosing Ras Al-Khaimah.
“In 2012, Ras Al-Khaimah welcomed 3,542 visitors from the Kingdom, representing just 0.32 percent of the emirate’s total visitor number but a 234 percent increase in the number of the country’s visitors from the year 2011,” he added.
Chalermsak Suaranat, director of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), Dubai and Middle East office, said the number of visitor to Thailand from the region had grown considerably during the past two years.
“While the UAE remains in top position bringing 108,994 visitors to Thailand in 2012, other GCC countries are also emerging as potential expanding markets including Oman, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait,” he told Arab News.
“Last year, Oman produced 65,690 visitors to Thailand, an increase of 21.7 percent compared to 2011 — this was the highest increase across the Middle East,” he said.
TRAVELER’S ROAD TO DECISION
A study conducted by Ipsos and released by Google, titled “Traveler’s Road to Decision,” revealed that users in both countries are tech savvy and rely on mobiles and videos when making travel decisions. The study provides in-depth data on the consumer behavior of leisure, business and affluent travelers.
Apart from direct advice from friends and family, the Internet is the number one source for trip planning for more than a third of leisure travelers surveyed (39 percent UAE, 38 percent Saudi Arabia).
This number rises for business travelers — in the UAE it jumps to 50 percent, while in Saudi Arabia it increases to 48 percent.
Online priorities vary between Saudi nationals to the Emiratis.
In Saudi Arabia, social networks and search engines are key sources of information for leisure travelers.
In the UAE, however, they rely on search engines primarily, before online videos and maps as sources of information.
