The Saudi capital will be undergoing consistent transformative change “every year” that will allow visitors and residents to feel a palpable difference, says the CEO of Diriyah Co.
Speaking to Arab News on the sidelines of the second edition of the Saudi Tourism Forum in Riyadh, Jerry Inzerillo affirmed that visitors of the Kingdom’s capital do not need to look forward to 2030 to begin to witness the changes that the area is undergoing. Instead, they are already experiencing the transformation that will continue throughout the coming years.
The executive cited the last quarter, which was filled with “great victories,” spanning from Saudi Arabia’s winning of the Expo 2030 bid to the World Cup.
He highlighted that the forum is “really critical” as it aids in highlighting the Kingdom’s dynamic transformation, a feat considered impossible just a few years ago.
He said: “Riyadh is now going to have a big transformative change every year. What I love now is that the public, our community will see great physical changes each year now. So we’ll open hotels will open restaurants, we’ll open retail, you know, we just finished 9 km of parks, so that people don’t have to wait 2030 to feel the change.”
He added: “With this tourism forum, it’s really, really critical because now, just five years ago, we really had to convince people to come to the Kingdom. It wasn’t easy to overcome certain image issues, because people didn’t know the Kingdom. They didn’t know Saudi hospitality. They didn’t even know what the Kingdom looked like. So they were stuck in stereotypes.”
Inzerillo applauded the efforts of the Ministry of Tourism and the Saudi Tourism Authority that have catalyzed the sector’s revolution within the Kingdom and have allowed the country to position itself as a major attraction both on the regional and global scales.
The result of these efforts can be exemplified by the significant 156 percent increase in the number of tourists arriving in 2023 compared to 2019. A recent UN World Tourism Barometer report denotes that Saudi Arabia’s great success is paving the way for the Middle East to lead the global tourism recovery.
According to the World Tourism Organization, Saudi Arabia was the most visited country by travelers in the Arab world in 2022, welcoming 18 million passengers, compared to 14.8 million traveling to the UAE.
As the nation continues to undergo its transformative journey to fulfill Vision 2030, the CEO noted that “some of that’s going to be interrupted, because we have to put a spectacular infrastructure and that’s not going to be easy, but we’ll do it. We have a habit of getting things done in the Kingdom, as you know.”