India’s travel sector has recently observed a large increase in the flux of tourists going to Saudi Arabia after the Kingdom introduced its promotional campaigns in a bid to attract two million visitors from India by the end of 2023.
As Arab News reports, India has emerged as an important tourism source market for Saudi Arabia in the last two years. In this regard, the Saudi Tourism Authority (STA) emphasized that India is expected to become the largest market in the country in the coming years, VisaGuide.World reports.
In the second month of this year, STA held a series of events across India, showcasing mostly historical sites and innovative projects of the Kingdom as well.
At the same time, the authority also signed a partnership deal with the Indian Premier League, the world’s most-watched T20 cricket franchise, to tap into the sport’s strong fan base for promotion.
Based on data from India’s largest online travel company, MakeMyTrip, search indexes for Saudi Arabia show an upward trend, with an increase of 20 percent during January-March 2023 compared to October-December 2022.
The same source revealed that most of the travelers came mainly from the metropolitan areas of India such as Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Bangalore and other big cities. Meanwhile, their three main destinations in the Kingdom were Jeddah, Riyadh and Dammam.
For Indian citizens to be able to travel to Saudi Arabia, they must obtain a traditional visa in advance for which they have to apply at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia. The main requirements for obtaining a visa for Saudi Arabia include making an appointment, collecting a few documents, as well as paying the application fee.
Data provided by Statista reveals that in 2021, Indian nationals departing to the West Asian nation of Saudi Arabia accounted for nearly 269,000 applications, which is actually a decline from 2019.
The highest number of tourists from India traveling to Saudi Arabia was marked in 2016 when 1,656,000 Indian tourists reached the country.
The Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Al-Khateeb, has revealed that last year a total of 93.5 million foreign and domestic tourists were registered in the country. During this period there was a 21 percent increase in the rate of domestic tourists, which reached 77 million compared to 2021 when 16.5 million were recorded.
In a bid to further increase the number of travelers from India, the Saudi authorities are focusing their efforts on building relationships with Indian industry stakeholders and are simultaneously investing in marketing and branding campaigns specifically targeting the Indian market.
In this regard, the STA’s chief for Asia Pacific Alhasan Al-Dabbagh noted that by 2030, Saudi Arabia expects India to become a major source market, which will play an important role in achieving the goal of attracting 100 million global visits by the same year.
To support such goals related to the development of the tourism industry, the Association of Travel Agents of India (TAAI), which is one of the largest industry groups in the country, has recently also signed a cooperation agreement with STA.
Commenting on this decision, the President of TAAI, Jyoti Mayal, emphasized that with the investments made in the tourist infrastructure and the main initiatives such as the Red Sea Project, NEOM, Qiddiya, have enabled the Kingdom to create space for all types of visitors, from leisure and family tourists to business and conference travelers as well.
According to him, the country also aims to promote as much as possible the capitalization of its wide historical and geological attractions, but also the emergence of technology and modernization.
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