Saudi Arabia is stepping up efforts to expand its tourism sector, with its sights set on attracting five million Chinese tourists by 2030, said Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Saudi Minister of Tourism.

Al-Khateeb emphasized the kingdom's rich cultural heritage and warm Arabian hospitality as a draw for Chinese tourists, highlighting the potential for cultural exchange and tourism partnerships between the two sides.
"Saudi Arabia is a big country full of culture and heritage. We have the green mountains in the South, we have the beautiful beaches at the Red Sea on the West of Saudi Arabia. And we have the old cities like Riyadh and the history and heritage in Al-Ula and other cities. And we know that the Chinese tourists are very sophisticated. They travel to learn about other nations' cultures, and we believe that Saudi Arabia has the Arabian culture and the Arabian hospitality," said the minister.
With more people traveling between the two countries nowadays for business and leisure, the Saudi side has been increasing its flight capacity and frequency that are expected to be boosted about 130 percent.
"We have almost doubled the capacity in one year and we have about today almost 600,000 seats per year. But definitely we need to grow this faster in the next few years to cater for the double-digit growth that is happening [in] the travel between the two countries for different reasons," he said.
In addition to increasing air routes, Saudi Arabia has widely adopted Alipay and WeChat Pay, the two biggest Chinese mobile payment methods, said the minister. Meanwhile, it has expanded supporting facilities, such as building more Chinese restaurants and enriching the retail experience for tourists.
The minister believes that there are mass opportunities for Chinese companies and investors to capitalize on the growing Saudi Arabian tourism sector.
"We are building new airlines, Riyadh Airlines, we are building new airports and we are building new destinations, entertainment cities, cultural cities and new resorts at the Red Sea. And we need to see more of hotel operators, Chinese hotel operators, to come and operate the thousands of hotels that we are building now. We are building more than 250,000 new hotel key rooms in the next 10 years. I invite the Chinese hotel companies and hotel operators and the travel companies to come and set up their businesses in Saudi Arabia to capture part of this huge investment," he said.