ALBAWABA - An industry study based on data from Almosafer's customer travel sites showed that local tourism in Saudi Arabia grew steadily in the first four months of 2024, Arab News reports, with 53 percent of all bookings being for trips to places inside the kingdom.
The continued interest in domestic tourism shows how well efforts by the government and the private sector to promote local tourism have been working, leading to a 29% rise in the total number of domestic bookings made through all Almosafer platforms.
Makkah, Riyadh, Jeddah, Alkhobar, and Abha topped the charts for the most popular places to visit within Saudi Arabia, followed by AlUla, Tabuk, and Hail as favoured places by travellers.
There are a lot of magical places in #Saudi Arabia#tourism pic.twitter.com/gebihpcg2z
— حسان الزهراني (@hassana89768519) May 4, 2024
As a result of additional flight routes, more seats, and additional airports being opened in the Kingdom, economical airlines have been able to offer more budget-friendly trip choices, leading to a 27 percent increase in flight booking compared to the same period last year, while hotel reservations soared 40 percent.
Domestic and foreign tourists spent more than SR250 billion ($66.7 billion) on tourism in 2023, making it an important part of the national income, as the Saudi kingdom pushes for alternative income sources away from oil, with the country welcoming 27.4 million foreign tourists and 79.3 million local ones in 2023.
The study additionally revealed that Saudi Arabia had a tremendous return rate for tourism after COVID, with 156 percent more foreign tourists coming to the country in 2023 compared to 2019.
