Saudi Arabia aims for 70 million tourism visits this year -official

By Yousef Saba

DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia aims to exceed 70 million tourist visits this year after drawing 62 million last year, a tourism official said on Monday, underlining the conservative kingdom concerted push to boost its travel industry.

Saudi Arabia is a major religious destination with millions visiting Islam’s two holy cities of Mecca and Medina annually to perform the hajj and umrah pilgrimages.

The kingdom has in recent years started to promote leisure travel as part of a strategy aimed at diversifying the economy away from oil, spearheaded by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Visits were up 130% in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the last quarter of 2019, Saudi Tourism Authority CEO Fahd Hamidaddin…