Riyadh, April 7: Prince Sultan bin Salman, president of Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), underscored the significance of further developing tourism infrastructure facilities and services in order to prevent Saudis visiting foreign destinations during their vacation.
“The momentum of Saudis leaving for foreign countries having advanced tourist facilities and top standard of services with reasonable prices for all sections of society would continue unless there is more government support for this vital sector,” Prince Sultan said.
“It is the government that can invest in building infrastructure facilities and improving services by attracting investors to the domestic tourism sector,” he added.
Prince Sultan was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the second session of the Travel and Tourism Investment Market 2012 (TTIM), which concluded here on Thursday evening.
About 140 companies and agencies participated in the high-profile event, organized by SCTA, at the Riyadh International Exhibition Center.
TTIM was held as part of the commission’s initiative to promote the Kingdom’s domestic tourism.
The four-day event, opened by Riyadh Gov. Prince Sattam on Monday, showcased various tourism agencies, hotels and transportation services displaying their products and services. This year’s event with the theme of “Tourism for everybody: Partnership toward a sustainable development” was part of SCTA’s initiative to promote domestic tourism in the Kingdom.
The SCTA chief noted that the private sector’s role in developing tourism sector comes only after that of the government. “The private sector has also been playing a great role in developing tourism projects, like in other economic sectors in the Kingdom,” he pointed out.
Prince Sultan said SCTA would announce the statistical figures about the number of Saudis who went abroad for vacationing during the recent second semester school vacation.
According to the prince, SCTA hopes that improving local tourist facilities and organizing various programs in addition to acquiring ability to compete with countries visited by Saudi holidaymakers would help realize enormous economic benefits and contain the outflow of wealth to foreign countries.
The SCTA chief noted that this would also be instrumental in creating more job opportunities for citizens in the tourism sector in addition to bringing forth great benefits so as to enable the citizens to spend their vacation within the Kingdom and know more about their country.
“The loss that surpasses the economic losses is the result of us missing opportunities to make the citizen stay in the Kingdom (to spend his vacation) and understand more (about the Kingdom), enjoy its beauty, know its history, and interact with fellow citizens,” Prince Sultan said.
“This would also leave sweet memories in their minds about their country rather than reliving memories of tourist spots outside the Kingdom,” he added.
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