GDP of Saudi domestic tourism crossed SR 70 billion in 2012
Almasalla Arab Travel Portal News – The GDP of Saudi domestic tourism during 2012 increased by 6.8% compared to 2011 to reach SR 70.2 billion, as the percentage of non-oil sector’s contribution to GDP touched slightly higher with an "added-value" from 7.3% to 7.4 % during the year 2012, according to the data released by SCTA.
The 49th Annual Report of Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) showed that the spending by domestic tourist "not including expenses on international transport", in 2012 amounted to SR 32.6 billion compared to SR 35.5 billion for the year 2011, a decrease of 8.2%.
The volume of inbound tourism spending in 2012 rose by 16.8 % to SR 57.2 billion, compared to about SR 49 billion for the previous year.
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The volume of spent by outbound tourism “not including expenses of international travel" during the year 2012, reached SR 61.1 billion, compared to SR 60.6 billion for the year 2011, reflecting an increase of 1.7 %, while the accommodation sector received the largest share of total spending of the local tourists reaching SR 8.2 billion, representing 25.2 % of the total spent in 2012 compared to SR 9.1 billion in 2011.
The report revealed the spending on food and beverages ranked second at about SR 8.1 billion rising by 24.9 % of total in 2012, compared to SR 6.7 billion in 2011.
On the expenditure side of the incoming tourists to the Kingdom, spending on accommodation facilities ranked first by about SR 19.7 billion riyals, up by 34.5% from the total in 2012, while spending on shopping came second by about SR 15.5 billion representing 27% of the total expenditure of the incoming tourist trips in 2012.
The 49th annual report of SAMA refers to the efforts of SCTA in the development of the hotel sector, as the number of hotels operating in the Kingdom by the end of 2012 reached to 1098 hotels of different grades, and the number of furnished residential units in the Kingdom by the end of 2012 reached about 1971, distributed across various cities in the Kingdom in varying numbers. The biggest share of these is found in the Makkah province reaching 522 units (26.5 %), followed by the Riyadh region, (26.3%) 519 units.
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The tourism sector created job opportunities for the citizens accommodating large numbers of workers in the kingdom, where the number of direct jobs in the tourism sectors in the Kingdom (excepting the unpaid functions) according to an estimate by SCTA amounted to about 709,000 jobs in 2012, an increase of 5.9% compared to 2011, which reached 670,000 direct jobs distributed across tourism sub-sectors. The percentage of Saudization in these jobs was about 26.7% compared to about 26.4% in the previous year.
The 49th annual report of SAMA on the other hand stated that SCTA’s evaluation has confirmed the tourism sector’s ability to provide growing number of direct jobs in the tourism sub-sectors as well as indirect employment opportunities, induced by tourism activity in other economic sectors linked to tourism sector, in addition to job opportunities that could be developed in subsequent periods as a result of economic spending cycle in all the sectors that are related to tourism development.
The report predicted for tourism sector to create about 1.3 million direct and indirect jobs in 2015 and about 1.8 million, in the year 2020.
