Around 1.3 million Saudi tourists will go this summer to new destinations due to the global and regional variables and the shortness of the vacation before Ramadan kicks in. Mohammad Al Maghrebi "Owner of Syaha Wa Safar Company" said that the tourists are not traveling to Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Spain and Greece. Some tourism agencies tried to attract people with Sharm El Sheikh prices but there wasn't a lot of response, while the bookings to Singapore from Jeddah reached around 170 thousand traveler so far, 90 thousands to Malaysia and 60 thousands. Europe on the other hand had the most travelers, especially France and Britain, where the bookings reached more than 350 thousands. He also added that there is an increase of bookings to Sri Lanka that you can get its visa from the airport, along with Malaysia, New Zealand, Turkey and South Korea, and it is expected for Korea to be the preferred tourism destination despite its expensive hotels because of its limited hotel services. He also indicated that traveling to US and Canada is increasing, where it reaches more than 250 thousand travelers so far regardless of late visa, which the embassies justify as high demand. It takes 2 months to get Canadian visa while only 2 weeks for France, and the British embassy increased the period to 3 weeks because of the high demand. Al Maghribi assured that organizing group trips is not beneficial for Saudis because of their conservative traditions. The companies provide family and individual tourism programs but some tourists don't want to be obliged to the timings of the programs especially in the mornings because they want to feel that they are in vacation without waking up timings. On the other hand, Khalid Ba Wazir, the manager of a tourism company, said that Dubai became a desired tourism destination as it is considered an alternative to Egypt, Syria and the Arab Maghreb countries, and usually Emirati air companies and other decrease the tickets prices in summer because of high temperatures and as an incentive for the tourists, and its expected that there will be around 150 thousand Saudi tourists to Dubai this summer. And about the local tourism he said that it lacks internal marketing, and when its cost is compared with the cost of outer tourism the difference is small, and the hotels are limited and the furnished apartments are out of maintenance which causes a big problem for the local tourist when it comes to residence.
