{"id":201321,"date":"2018-09-20T18:49:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T21:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=201321"},"modified":"2019-06-30T18:25:29","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T21:25:29","slug":"tourism-up-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/tourism-up-in-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"Tourism up in Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 Saudi Arabia saw SAR 13.5 billion (USD 3.6 billion) in domestic tourism revenues during summer this year. The country registered 11.3 million tourists over summer, up 12% from last year, the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scth.gov.ae\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SCTH<\/a>) reported this week.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia welcomed 2.3 million foreign tourists, up 21.2% year-on-year, with revenue reaching SAR 8.7 billion (USD 2.3 billion), up 15.9%. This does not include religious travelers. The Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, took place in August this year \u2013 i.e., summer in the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n<p>The country is pushing to promote itself as a destination for non-religious travelers, by advertising natural and historic sites and hosting international events, especially sports ones. This is part of an economic diversification plan championed by crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_201318\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-201318\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Eastern.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-201318 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Eastern-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Eastern-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Eastern-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Eastern-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/anba.com.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Eastern.jpg 1116w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-201318\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The eastern part of Saudi welcomes the bulk of non-domestic travelers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The western portion of the country welcomed the bulk of non-domestic travelers over summer, at 45% of total numbers. Next came the capital, Riyadh, at 27%, and Mecca at 16%. Tourists flocked in to visit family and friends (39%), do business (31%) and shopping (12%).<\/p>\n<p>Most non-domestic tourists in Saudi Arabia \u2013 50.8% \u2013 were from other Arab countries in the Gulf. Other travelers were from Southern Asia (15.2%), other Middle East countries (12.8%), Europe (6.2%), the United States (5.7%), East Asia and the Pacific (4.9%), Africa (2.5%) and elsewhere (1.8%).<\/p>\n<p>Domestic travelers favored the Mecca region 31%, Asir (18%), the eastern region of Saudi Arabia (12%) and Ryiadh (11%). These locals travelled for leisure (51%), to visit family or friends (35), to go shopping (5%) and to do business (4%).<\/p>\n<p>During the summer season, 9.4 million Saudis travelled to other countries, up 7.4% from 2017. They spent a combined SAR 30.5 billion (USD 8.1 billion) down 4.6% year-on-year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"credits-overlay\" data-target=\".wp-image-201316\">Press Release\/Saudi Tourism<\/div>\n<div class=\"credits-overlay\" data-target=\".wp-image-201318\">Press Release\/Saudi Tourism<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The country saw domestic tourist flows climb 12% and foreign tourist inflows go up 21% over the summer season. Revenue also increased.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2316,"featured_media":201316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[33028,393,5112,433,2247],"class_list":{"0":"post-201321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tourism","8":"tag-meca-en","9":"tag-saudi-arabia","10":"tag-saudi-commission-for-tourism-and-national-heritage-scth","11":"tag-tourism","12":"tag-tourists"},"wps_subtitle":"The country saw domestic tourist flows climb 12% and foreign tourist inflows go up 21% over the summer season. Revenue also increased.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}