Details

World’s travel map rapidly changing beyond expectation

-UAE’s tourism development strategy aligned with changing economic conditions

-Gulf region boasts high potential for tourism growth

-Streamlined tourist visa procedures enhance greater tourist mobility

Tourism mobility both hinges on and has a variety of economic impacts on other business platforms in any country. Therefore, the tourism sector has always been synonymous with the concepts of luxury, development, raising the level and quality of services and transformation to modern technology.

The weekly real estate report of Al Mazaya Holding Company emphasises that the investment and development drive targeting the tourism sector in the Gulf region is the basis upon which the ongoing development and stimulus packages are founded. This comes at a time when tourism is increasingly contributing to the region’s GDP, in addition to its role in developing other economic sectors and giving local economies more flexibility and strength to survive economic fluctuations.

The real estate report for Al Mazaya Holding indicated that the development of the Saudi tourism sector aims to increase tourism spending among Saudi citizens and foreigners to more than $46 billion by 2020, with consumer spending on entertainment expected to reach SAR 36 billion by 2030, in addition to the existence of other plans within this sector aimed to create more than 114,000 direct jobs.

Al Mazaya weekly real estate report added that the ongoing Saudi tourism development plans are aimed to raise the value of investments in the sector to about SAR 171 billion by the year 2020, with internal tourism projected to grow by 40%.

Within this context, the series of stimulating decisions taken recently, including the formal announcement that tourist visas will be issued for the first time to visitors from 49 countries around the world, will generate more investments and increase tourism revenues to 10% of the country’s gross national income by getting over SAR 100 million by 2030.

Al Mazaya Holding report added that the ongoing tourism development plans in the UAE are well aligned with other economic transformation strategies, with performance indicators showing that tourism investments account for 8.1% of the total investments in the country during 2018, at a total of AED26.4 billion. Further, tourism investments are projected to grow to AED61.2 billion by 2029, or 10.3% of total investments.

The weekly real estate report pointed out that Dubai is targeting 25 million visitors by 2025, through a series of visionary decisions, the latest of which was streamlining tourist visas for foreigners to increase family visits and revitalise travel movement, in addition to the continuous efforts to diversify tourism product offerings to ensure Dubai will be the destination of choice for international travellers, whether for leisure or business purposes.

The Al Mazaya Holding report noted the countries of the region have strong tourist potential that qualifies them to maximise benefit from the tourism sector thanks to several natural factors, namely their unique geographic position that ensures resilience and sustainable growth for the tourism sector under all financial and economic conditions.

The real estate report added, however, that the region’s tourism sector needs effective strategies by the country’s official and relevant authorities to stimulate mobility and investment to restore momentum again.

The Al Mazaya Holding report expects the recent incentive decisions to re-channel investments towards the tourism sector, to bear fruit over the short term, pointing to the importance of developing the sector while ensuring government support, according to a unified perspective. The report cited industry data indicating that tourism accounted for 12% of the total jobs in Arab countries and that investments are expected to grow to $323 billion by 2020, with the number of tourists projected to increase to 195 million. The development of incentive and competition tools has, therefore, become a must for this sector to keep growing and achieve the aspired results.

Al Mazaya report added that it is necessary to create the appropriate environment to enable the region’s tourism sector to get a significant share of global tourism, noting the fundamentals of safety and security being determining factors to secure the sought-after growth.

It is noteworthy that the map of regional and global tourist destinations; and the movement of tourists, is changing beyond all expectations, which requires the markets of the region to develop more efficient tools and incentives as part of their endeavours to take advantage of the recorded global mobility, given their exceptional capabilities and success factors.