What’s in store as Saudi Arabia unveils three-year digital tourism strategy

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The post What’s in store as Saudi Arabia unveils three-year digital tourism strategy appeared first on TD (Travel Daily Media) Travel Daily.

Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Tourism Ahmed bin Aqeel Al Khateeb has announced a three-year Digital Tourism Strategy, as the next step in the Kingdom’s continued reform of the sector.  The announcement was made at LEAP, Saudi’s largest-ever tech event held in Riyadh.

The Ministry of Tourism is pioneering nine innovative programmes consisting of 31 core initiatives by 2025 – positively impacting residents, visitors, investors and the public and private sectors. These programmes will accelerate the kingdom’s National Tourism Strategy and Vision 2030 targets, including 100 million new visits and tourism’s 10 percent GDP contribution.

Al Khateeb said: “The Digital Tourism Strategy will help us to redesign tourism in the Kingdom and achieve our ambitious Vision 2030 objectives of making Saudi Arabia a world-leading tourist destination. The Kingdom’s execution of this strategy over the next three years will inspire the tourism sector globally.”

Application of the strategy aims to provide tourists and stakeholders with a more seamless experience, that enables a thriving tourism sector. The strategy focuses on a number of areas:

  • Seamless Travel: Providing digital solutions to simplify travel procedures
  • Ease of Doing Business: Launching a unified platform to connect tourism service providers and applications
  • Innovation: Creating an experimental environment that will allow technology innovators to test new digital tourism solutions
  • Digital Travel: Supporting tourism related extended reality applications (e.g. virtual or augmented reality)
  • Encouraging Sustainability: Rewarding tourists for eco-friendly behaviours
  • Informed Decision Making: Building solutions that gather data and provide analytics for the tourism sector
  • Skilled Digital Workforce: Creating a generation of tourism professionals and entrepreneurs
  • Investor Attraction: Establish & engage a network of tourism investors through digital platforms

To achieve this, the strategy will deliver programmes that promote a Kingdom-wide culture of innovation and future-proof regulations. It will boost workforce skills to strengthen the labour market and attract global innovators by providing a safe and supportive environment to explore and experiment their work. A dedicated programme will target upskilling and reskilling the tourism workforce to increase Saudi Arabia’s tourism sector employability rate and enable the next generation of entrepreneurs, he said.

The Ministry of Tourism will also pioneer new digital business models to increase market demand for service providers. The new models will include disruptive regulations for smart hotels and streamlined methods of digital travel, creating a frictionless seamless travel experience for tourists, businesses, and governments.

The post What’s in store as Saudi Arabia unveils three-year digital tourism strategy appeared first on Travel Daily.

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