Three Academies for Tourism Studies will be established in different parts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
One of the Academies will be set up at Metro Bletan Palace in Makkah, according to Abdullah Bin Daud Al-Fayez , Undersecretary at Makkah Governorate. He made the announcement in his address on Thursday to the first gathering of the Hajj and Ummrah National Committee, Al-Madina Arabic language newspaper reported.
Moves to develop the Saudi tourism sector accelerated on Thursday when Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Fahd Bin Abdullah, Deputy Secretary General of the Supreme Commission for Tourism (SCT) launched STC's program to create jobs for Saudis in the sector. He said SCT will undertake this year a cooperative marketing program for tourist products covering all parts of the Kingdom. "We are also in the process of issuing a tourist and travel directory covering all the investment rules in the industry," he said.
Meanwhile, Bander Bin Fahd Al-Fuhaid , chairman of the National Hajj and Umrah National Committee in the member states of the Arab Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), announced that arrangements are being made for the establishment of a tourism investment company with a starting capital of SR500 million. He said the company would invest in a wide range of tourist activities, especially in constructing hotels, transportation, support services and catering services for Umrah and Hajj companies. It will also invest in some islands such as Farasan Islands in the southern Red Sea.
He said the company, to be based in Jeddah, would come up with travel packages for domestic tourism.
Al-Fuhaid added that an agreement has been reached with a Bahraini investment bank to finance part of the project with Saudi business people as well as others from the GCC states as shareholders.
In a related development, Prince Sultan Bin Salman, SCT Secretary General, stated that the Commission is in the process of establishing a tourist-security sector. He said that the project is concerned with a study on factors threatening the growth of this vital industry and that plans are being drawn up for training a national tourism security cadre.
Women have a key role to play in the Saudi tourism industry, he stressed. He said SCT is making arrangement to absorb women in the sector. The secretary general said that more details about job opportunities in tourism would be unveiled Sunday at the Jeddah Economic Forum when the Egyptian tourism minister, experts from the Maldives and the secretary general of the World Tourism Organization present their working papers.
Prince Sultan Bin Salman said the strategy is to employ about 1.5 million job seekers in the tourism field in the next 20 years
