Saudi Arabia’s diverse travel types

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00:00OK, and for people coming to visit Saudi Arabia, what sort of trends are you seeing there in terms of the profile of the visitor?

00:08Yeah, I think for people visiting Saudi Arabia, there's kind of a couple of different segments.

00:12There's, of course, the growth and the continued presence of the religious travel segment.

00:17The ease of visa allowing Muslim travels around the world to visit the holy cities of Makkah and Medina and perform Umrah continues to grow.

00:25Umrah grew to almost 18 million visitors last year, with a target to hit 30 million by 2030, continued expansion of the holy sites.

00:36At the same time, the rise of events in Saudi Arabia, whether that's sporting events.

00:41We just I was just at F1 in Jeddah, saw a great amount of tourists visiting there and business events.

00:47There's FYI conferences, a number of events happening around the business and economy in Saudi Arabia,

00:53bringing business travelers who are taking the time also to explore Saudi while they're visiting Saudi,

00:58many of who have came to Saudi for the first time from all over the world.

01:02And lastly, domestic travel.

01:04You know, Saudis are continuing to travel.

01:07And when visitors come, they also take a chance to see the rest of the smaller cities,

01:12not only the main holy cities or just Riyadh, but also the new sites like Red Sea,

01:17the new project Red Sea or Al-Ula really taking a chance to immerse themselves in the culture and the experiences.