RIYADH — Bandar Al-Safeer, director general of Training and Nationalization of Jobs at the Ministry of Tourism, said that the number of Saudis working in the Kingdom's tourism sector reached around 189,000 out of the total 726,000 employees in this sector, and this represents 26 percent of the total workforce in the tourism sector. Addressing a virtual meeting organized by the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he said that the ministry aims to raise the gross domestic product (GDP) of the tourism sector to 5.3 percent in 2022 and about 10 percent in 2030. "It also aims to have the number of inflow of tourists reach 32.5 million in 2022 and about 43 million in 2030. The number of visits of Saudi tourists to outside the Kingdom is expected to reach 29.5 million in 2022 and about 55 million in 2030," he said. Al-Safeer said that the ministry has identified 15 programs to boost domestic tourism sector, and these included six programs for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), some of which were launched, some are in the process of being launched while some others will be launched in future. These programs were represented in the tourism scholarship program; training program ends in employment; applied training program; Hafawa program; professional certifications; leadership development program; executive education program; E-tourism education platform, and secondment training program. This comes in addition to support programs for SMEs, camp program for the establishment of enterprises; tourism business acceleration program; capacity-building program for tourism SMEs, startup studio, tourism innovation and entrepreneurship complex, and the destination tourism challenge program. Al-Safeer also referred to the launch of the Your Future Tourism initiative, which has garnered interaction from employers and jobseekers. "This aims to create 100,000 job opportunities by the end of 2021, which will be announced in due course to keep pace with Vision 2030 in bringing down unemployment levels, meeting the tourism sector's needs of national cadres and empowering Saudi youth," he added.
