Saudi Arabia Partners With World Economic Forum To Launch Global Tourism Transformation Initiative, Here’s All You Need To Know

Published on November 17, 2025

In a transformative effort to to change nan world tourism scenario, nan World Economic Forum (WEF) and Saudi Ministry of Tourism joined forces successful creating nan ‘Beyond Tourism’ project. Its intent is to thief execute nan foremost goals of nan schedule for tourism worldwide, namely sustainability, inclusion, and resilience. Beyond Tourism intends to assistance successful nan betterment of tourism successful each its forms truthful that its benefits widen to each levels of nan system (as good arsenic nan section economically weaker sections), nan environment, and nan future. To execute this goal, Beyond Tourism brings together a assortment of leaders successful nan nationalist and backstage sectors.

The Launch of Beyond Tourism: Shaping nan Future of Travel

The charismatic unveiling of Beyond Tourism took spot during Tourise, a high-profile world level that brings together leaders from some nan nationalist and backstage sectors to talk nan early of tourism. The arena marked a important milestone successful Saudi Arabia’s increasing domiciled arsenic a leader successful advancing world practice successful nan tourism industry. As a cardinal subordinate successful this transformative initiative, Saudi Arabia is positioning itself arsenic a driving unit successful creating a tourism assemblage that is some sustainable and inclusive, pinch semipermanent benefits for people, businesses, and nan planet.

Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Tourism, expressed nan Kingdom’s pridefulness successful starring this effort. “Saudi Arabia is proud to lead Beyond Tourism successful business pinch nan World Economic Forum,” he said. “This business reflects our shared belief that nan solutions we activity for tourism are solutions for humanity itself – solutions that foster understanding, create opportunity, and build resilience for generations to come.” Al-Khateeb’s connection highlights nan initiative’s broader goals of fostering world practice while ensuring nan tourism assemblage adapts to nan needs of an evolving world.

Creating a Connected, Inclusive, and Sustainable Global Tourism Framework

At its core, Beyond Tourism is astir crafting a world model for a tourism assemblage that is connected, inclusive, and sustainable. The inaugural sets retired to create a much holistic attack to tourism, 1 that goes beyond simply attracting visitors to a destination. By fostering a collaborative effort among leaders from various industries, including existent estate, technology, infrastructure, municipality planning, culture, and conservation, Beyond Tourism intends to redefine really tourism contributes to nan broader social, cultural, and biology landscape.

The initiative’s halfway principles revolve astir 10 guiding elements that will style nan early of world tourism. These principles see aligning marketplace opportunities pinch section strengths, empowering section economies, processing future-ready workforces, preserving and celebrating taste heritage, revitalizing ecosystems, and ensuring responsible usage of technology. These principles will supply a roadmap for nan tourism manufacture to travel successful bid to create a much balanced and sustainable assemblage that meets nan needs of some visitors and residents while protecting nan planet.

Supporting Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030: Tourism arsenic a Key Driver

The motorboat of Beyond Tourism is an integral portion of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, a wide betterment scheme aimed astatine diversifying nan Kingdom’s system and reducing its reliance connected oil. As portion of this eager plan, tourism has been identified arsenic a cardinal assemblage for economical diversification, occupation creation, and fostering taste exchange. Saudi Arabia has group an eager target to pull 150 cardinal visitors annually by 2030, up from 116 cardinal visitors since nan motorboat of Vision 2030.

By positioning tourism arsenic a awesome driver of economical growth, Saudi Arabia is keen to guarantee that nan assemblage contributes not only to nan GDP but besides to nan wide well-being of its citizens and nan wider world. Beyond Tourism aligns pinch this imagination by emphasizing nan value of sustainable tourism practices that prioritize semipermanent societal and biology benefits, alternatively than short-term economical gain.

Tourism Transformation: A Global Coalition for Change

To guarantee nan occurrence of Beyond Tourism, a world conjugation of leaders from various sectors has been formed to identify, develop, and instrumentality objection projects that beforehand sustainable tourism practices successful cardinal regions. Over nan adjacent 3 years, nan World Economic Forum and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Tourism will activity intimately together to build a divers organization of stakeholders, including businesses, section governments, and world organizations. This conjugation will attraction connected processing applicable tools, sharing champion practices, and piloting innovative tourism models that align pinch nan initiative’s guiding principles.

These projects are expected to beryllium rolled retired successful cardinal tourism destinations astir nan world, pinch a attraction connected demonstrating nan imaginable benefits of sustainable tourism practices. By piloting these models successful divers locations, Beyond Tourism intends to create scalable solutions that tin beryllium replicated globally, yet fostering a much inclusive, sustainable, and resilient tourism industry.

The Impact connected Tourists: A More Meaningful Travel Experience

For tourists, Beyond Tourism promises to connection a much meaningful and responsible recreation experience. Rather than simply focusing connected wide tourism, nan inaugural advocates for a deeper relationship betwixt visitors and nan destinations they visit. By supporting section economies and promoting nan preservation of taste practice and earthy landscapes, Beyond Tourism intends to create a tourism exemplary that benefits each stakeholders involved.

Tourists will beryllium encouraged to prosecute successful recreation experiences that not only fulfill their desire for exploration but besides lend positively to nan communities and environments they interact with. This could see visiting destinations that prioritize sustainable practices, engaging successful taste speech programs that foster communal understanding, aliases participating successful activities that support section conservation efforts.

In nan agelong term, this displacement successful attraction could lead to a translator successful nan measurement group travel, pinch an accent connected value complete quantity. By fostering a deeper knowing of nan section culture, heritage, and biology challenges, visitors tin go much responsible world citizens, promoting nan benignant of sustainable tourism that Beyond Tourism is striving to achieve.

The Role of Technology successful Transforming Tourism

As portion of its guiding principles, Beyond Tourism besides emphasizes nan responsible usage of exertion to support nan sustainable improvement of tourism. From smart tourism infrastructure to data-driven insights into visitant behavior, exertion tin play a pivotal domiciled successful creating much businesslike and sustainable tourism experiences. Through nan integration of innovative technologies, specified arsenic artificial intelligence, large data, and nan Internet of Things, tourism destinations tin amended negociate visitant flows, trim biology impacts, and amended nan wide tourer experience.

A Vision for a Sustainable and Inclusive Future

Beyond Tourism represents a caller attack for world tourism—one that accommodates each aspects of sustainability, inclusion and resilience. Integrating various leaders successful nan tourism ecosystem and joining efforts pinch Saudi Arabia Vision 2030, nan inaugural intends to build a tourism manufacture that offers enduring worth to individuals, communities and nan ecosystem.

For travelers, nan displacement towards sustainable and inclusive tourism offers a much profound and enriched measurement to travel. It supports section economies, conserves taste legacies and mitigates biology degradation. As Beyond Tourism develops, it has nan expertise to displacement nan world tourism manufacture to go much responsible, resilient and equitable for decades to come.