Tourism among top priorities for creating jobs

RIYADH: The Ministry of Economy and Planning (MoEP) has prioritized tourism for economic diversification in the Kingdom considering it as a major source of revenue with capability of creating a large number of jobs.
Ahmed bin Habeeb Salah, undersecretary at the MoEP, said: “Tourism sector will be among the top priorities in the framework of the national transformation program for the diversification of income sources that has been announced by the government.”
Considering the views that the tourism sector has potential to create concrete change in the national economy and emerge as the future alternative of the petroleum as one of the mainstay of the economy, he said the sector will play as an economic alternative to ensure that state does not fully rely on crude oil, besides its ability to create jobs for citizens.
“According to the state’s expectations, the tourism sector will create the second largest income for the state after oil within the next few years,” Salah said.
He said that once the domestic tourism infrastructure was ready, which is expected to be finalized soon in different parts of the Kingdom, the tourism sector would be one of most important new income sources for the national transformation.