According to Minister of Tourism Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Saudi Arabia will soon introduce a new visa scheme for residents of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Al-Khateeb stressed that the visitor visas launched by the Kingdom in 2019 still exist and there are no specific restrictions on visitors coming for tourism.

On Wednesday, Al-Khateeb told CNBC Arabic that 64 million domestic trips were made in the Kingdom during 2021, while the number of tourists from abroad reached 5 million.

During the pandemic, the tourism sector in the Kingdom shrank by 40 percent.

The Al-Bujairi area of the Diriyah project is expected to open this year, according to Al-Khateeb.

In 2019, the sector contributed 3 percent to job creation, with a goal of 10 percent by 2030.

He added that the job sector in the Kingdom increased by 15 percent to 820,000 jobs between 2019 and now. “We intend to spend more than $200 billion by 2030.”

Al-Khateeb said, "We aim to reach a contribution of the sector to the Kingdom's GDP of about 10 percent by 2030."

As of September 2019, the tourism sector contributed 3 percent to the Kingdom's GDP, according to Al-Khateeb.