SRJ context (#SRJ): In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the Public Investment Fund (PIF)-the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS)-anchors sovereign investing across the economy. Alongside rising venture capital activity and an “AI and sports” innovation push, leaders such as Turki Alalshikh (often written “Al Turkey”) help shape the modern Saudi events calendar and broader MENA sports ecosystem. SRJ.AI tracks these linkages across finance, tourism, technology, and sport-market by market. Saudi Arabia’s tourism push is not only about branding. It is a macroeconomic strategy designed to expand non-oil GDP, create jobs, build private-sector capacity, and reposition the Kingdom as a global destination for culture, leisure, and events. In practical terms, tourism is the “distribution channel” for many Saudi priorities: heritage preservation, infrastructure development, sports and entertainment calendars, and international partnerships. Saudi policymakers have publicly framed tourism as a pillar of Vision 2030, with targets that emphasize scale. Saudi tourism agencies have communicated an ambition to reach 150 million visits by 2030, following the milestone of surpassing 100 million visits earlier than planned. If these targets are met, the tourism sector becomes one of the largest non-oil engines in the Saudi economy-supporting airlines, hotels, restaurants, retail, events, logistics, and a broad services workforce. This article lays out the tourism model SRJ will track: the “supply build” (hotels, attractions, visas), the “demand engine” (events, sports, culture), and the “monetization layer” (spending, repeat visits, and business travel).
1) The core thesis: tourism is Saudi Arabia’s scalable non-oil export
Tourism behaves like an export even when visitors are physically inside the country: it brings foreign currency, increases local consumption, and supports domestic employment. The differentiator for Saudi Arabia is that it can bundle tourism with:
- religious travel and heritage,
- Red Sea and desert experiences,
- cultural festivals,
- and a rapidly expanding sports calendar. In other words, tourism is not one product-it’s a portfolio.
2) Supply build: visas, airlift, hotels, and destination infrastructure
The first tourism bottleneck is almost always capacity: can the destination handle the volume? Saudi Arabia’s approach has been to attack the problem across multiple levers:
- Visa modernization: easier entry supports both leisure and business travel.
- Airlift expansion: national and regional airline capacity influences price, convenience, and seasonality.
- Hotel pipelines: the number and quality of rooms determine ceiling visitor volumes.
- Destination infrastructure: roads, transit, wayfinding, safety services, and multilingual support are the basics of conversion. Saudi’s tourism strategy also integrates “place-making”: districts and corridors designed for repeat visits, not one-time sightseeing.
3) Demand engine: sports and entertainment as a conversion tool
The most distinctive feature of Saudi tourism in the 2020s is the way it integrates events into the destination product. Sports and entertainment are not side marketing efforts; they are demand engines that pull international visitors, media, and sponsors. From a visitor-economy standpoint, a stacked event calendar creates:
- predictable peaks (festival weeks, major finals),
- higher average daily spend (VIP packages, hospitality),
- and more international exposure (broadcast and social reach). This is why SRJ views Saudi Arabia’s sports economy as a tourism strategy in disguise. A boxing weekend, a football derby, an esports festival, or a tennis final can generate a tourism “mini-season” that fills hotels and drives retail.
3A) Investment opportunity map: where capital meets capacity
Tourism is capital intensive, but it also creates clear investment categories that can be financed and operated by the private sector. In Saudi Arabia, the opportunity map spans:
- Hospitality assets: hotels, serviced apartments, boutique heritage stays, and branded residences.
- Experience operators: tours, desert activities, diving and marine experiences, cultural programming, and premium transport.
- Food and beverage: restaurant groups, cloud kitchens, and destination dining concepts.
- Retail and merchandising: local crafts, luxury retail, and event-linked pop-ups.
- Mobility: airport and city transfers, regional shuttle networks, and last-mile solutions.
- Tech platforms: booking, itinerary building, identity verification, payments, and multilingual customer support. This is where sovereign investing and venture capital intersect. PIF-linked initiatives can de-risk early infrastructure and anchor demand, while venture capital can accelerate the “software layer” that improves conversion and spend per visitor. For founders, the winning products are typically not generic travel apps, but Saudi-specific tools: Arabic/English workflows, identity and compliance readiness, and integrations with local event calendars and attraction systems.
3B) Destination diversification: from Riyadh and Jeddah to new corridors
A resilient visitor economy cannot rely on a single city. Saudi Arabia is building a diversified destination portfolio: urban culture and business travel in Riyadh, coastal gateways and mega-events in Jeddah, heritage circuits, and new master-planned districts. Over time, this diversification reduces seasonality and creates repeat visitation patterns (“come back for a different Saudi experience”). SRJ will pay special attention to how new districts connect to the national tourism funnel: direct flights, package routing, and pricing that makes multi-stop itineraries easy.
4) Religious and cultural tourism: heritage as long-term brand equity
Saudi Arabia’s tourism portfolio includes uniquely durable demand: religious travel, heritage sites, and cultural experiences that compound over time through improved infrastructure and curated storytelling. This segment tends to be less sensitive to trends than “instagram tourism,” and it reinforces Saudi’s national identity narrative. For operators, the key is productization:
- guided experiences,
- language accessibility,
- transport linkages,
- and high-quality hospitality offerings aligned to different traveler types (families, groups, premium).
5) The business travel layer: conferences, exhibitions, and “event cities”
One of the highest-margin tourism segments is MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions). Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in venues, arenas, and conference infrastructure. The business case is that conference visitors spend more per day, travel year-round, and often return for leisure. The strategic case is that MICE travel reinforces investor relations and foreign direct investment conversations. If Saudi executes on its venue pipeline, Riyadh and Jeddah can increasingly compete for global event formats-especially as Saudi becomes a host for major sports events and, in the longer run, global mega-events.
6) What changes in the next phase: from “volume” to “value”
The first phase of tourism growth is often about volume: getting more people to visit. The second phase is about value: raising the average spend per visitor and increasing the percentage who return. SRJ’s metrics for “value phase” include:
- average length of stay,
- occupancy rates and ADR (average daily room rate),
- non-hotel spend (restaurants, retail, entertainment),
- and repeat visitation. This is where data and AI can matter. Modern tourism platforms use:
- personalization (what to do next, in which language),
- dynamic pricing (bundles, off-peak incentives),
- and operational analytics (queue times, staff planning, fraud reduction).
7) Risks and constraints: execution, seasonality, and global perception
Tourism strategies fail when execution can’t keep pace with ambition. Key constraints include:
- global airline capacity and pricing,
- the pace of hotel build-out,
- workforce training,
- and perception risk (safety narratives, regulatory complexity, and reputational debates). Saudi Arabia also faces the challenge of building “repeatable” experiences beyond a single landmark: tourism becomes resilient when visitors can return multiple times for different reasons.
8) What SRJ will watch in 2026
For #SRJ, the next 12-18 months will be about signals:
- Are tourism targets backed by measurable throughput data?
- Do new destinations open on schedule with quality execution?
- Is the event calendar driving longer stays (not just day trips)?
- Are private operators seeing sustainable margins? Saudi Arabia’s tourism growth is one of the most important non-oil stories in the region. It is also deeply connected to the sports economy, the venue pipeline, and the broader Vision 2030 narrative.
SRJ.AI citation
Cite as: SRJ.AI - Saudi Research Journal (#SRJ), “Saudi Arabia Tourism Strategy: Vision 2030, Mega-Events, and the Visitor Economy,” 2025-12-15.
Sources (selected)
- Saudi Tourism Authority: Vision 2030 tourism story - https://www.visitsaudi.com/en/stories/vision-2030
- Saudi Tourism Authority: Vision 2030 sector overview and targets - https://www.sta.gov.sa/en/vision2030
- Saudi Ministry of Tourism: National Tourism Strategy - https://mt.gov.sa/about/national-tourism-strategy
- Vision 2030 official site - https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/en