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.
Saudi Arabia welcomes Chinese tourists, investors
Over 2,000 officials and experts from African countries have gathered at an annual event dedicated to water resource management in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, discussing issues related to water security on the continent and climate change to boost continental cooperation in water resources.
The 7th Cairo Water Week, held in Cairo from Oct 13 to 17, coincided with the 9th African Water Week to address problems which affect much of the African continent. The aim is to help vulnerable countries finance crucial water-security projects and elevate the issue on the wider climate-change agenda.
A total of 2100 participants and 25 senior officials from 93 countries, as well as 77 international organizations, joined the two events to focus on Africa.
"I am happy that the Cairo Water Week and Africa Water Week were combined in a truly international event. The importance here is, and we saw it in the summary, an importance of how we finance the developmental gap that Africa is experiencing in the water sector, how do we bring water back to the center stage of the climate change agenda, and how do we deal with transboundary matters that are a serious cause of conflict," said Calle Schlettwein, Namibian Minister of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform.
Experts and decision makers intensively discussed food security, as agriculture remains the continent's most water consuming industry. The uniqueness of the event this year brought together various stakeholders, including younger generations.
"It is not a conference only for scientists, it's not only for experts. Cairo Water Week is owned by every one of these stakeholders, civil society, governments, ministers. So you see here, ministers, but here you can see school students, you see there some farmers, and here you see some NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations). That is the power of the Cairo Water Week," said Hany Sweilam, Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation.
Earlier this year, Egypt established the Pan African Center for Water and Climate Adaptation to be a knowledge sharing hub and a tool for continental capacity building. The UNESCO accredited organization offers programs and training tools to empower Africans with the latest developments in managing and reusing water resources.
"We realized that definitely we need to increase the allocation towards the water and sanitation sector under that theme because the financing gap is quite huge, about 70 percent. We have a challenge of having access to safely managed water and sanitation on the continent. We also looked at issues related to water resources management, issues related to water for infrastructure development, issues related to climate change and disaster risk reduction," said Nelson Gomonda, Director of Programs of the African Ministers Council on Water.
During the week-long conference, Cairo signed agreements with Nigeria, Kenya and Somalia to collaborate on building digital tools, smart climate solutions and jointly train new calibers to lead Africa's aspirations in achieving its Agenda 2063 goals when it comes to water security.
Officials, experts gather in Cairo to address continent’s water security
