The Kingdom had almost 8 million visitors in the first three months of 2023

Tourism and increasing visitor numbers is a key pillar of the nation's Vision 2030 strategy

LIST Editors

05 September 23

The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Tourism have released details of the number of international visitors and domestic tourists to the nation, for the first quarter of this year.

A record number of more than 7.8 million tourists visited the Kingdom between January and March.

This is the highest quarterly performance since pre-pandemic, and represents a growth of 64% during the same time period in 2019.

The World Tourism Organisation issued data in May 2023, and noted that Kingdom placed second globally in growth rate of international tourists visiting the country.

This large influx of visitors to Saudi Arabia, has resulted in a positive gain revenue linked with tourism for the nation. According to data released by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), tourism revenue increased by 225% compared to Q1 2022, and revenue figures reached SAR37 billion.

Tourism has been made a key strategy of Vision 2030, as the Kingdom aims to see more than 100 million tourists visiting Saudi each year. In addition to increasing tourism to the area, the Kingdom's tourism strategy aims to achieve other objectives by 2030, including making tourism account for 10% of gross domestic product (GDP).

In 2022, Saudi Arabia welcomed over 93.5 million tourists, with 77 million being domestic tourists and 16.5 million being international visitors.

With a number of exciting music events, hotel openings, sporting events and celebrations alongside other international happenings being hosted by the Kingdom, the number of visitors is set to continue to rise for the remainder of the year.