‘Tourism is too big to fail,’ Saudi minister says

The vice minister for Saudi tourism said the country’s nascent tourism industry should sustainable, regenerative — and held to account

Saudi Arabia’s vice minister for tourism (The Independent)

Taking the stage at Cop27’s Saudi Green Initiative, the vice minister of tourism for Saudi Arabia, HRH Princess Haifa bint Muhammad Al Saud, asserted that it was time to “stop thinking and start acting.”

Tourism accounts for 8 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, but HRH Princess Haifa bint Muhammad Al Saud warned that the number of global tourists was expected to double by 2030 and that “the environmental impact was going to get bigger and bigger.”

Three years after Saudi Arabia issued its first tourist visas as part of a broader push to diversify its economy, tourism has emerged as a key topic at the Saudi Green Initiative. The kingdom is currently developing ten destinations across 13 different regions, including the mountains of Soudah, overwater villas at the Red Sea and the deserts of AlUla.

The ambition is not only to preserve and maintain these destinations but to “go a step further in creating regenerative tourism” because “whilst climate change is real, so is biodiversity, so is community inclusion and so is sustainability.”

HRH Princess Haifa bint Muhammad Al Saud, asserted that it was time to ‘stop thinking and start acting’ on sustainable tourism (The Independent )

The vice minister explained regenerative tourism as leaving these destinations in “a much better place than where we found them”. Referencing the Read Sea Global tourism development, the minister said that the goal was to increase the conversation value by 30 per cent over the next two decades.” Initiatives include a lab-grown coral garden, opening up possibilities for research and reef regeneration globally.

Saudi Arabia’s Tourism Panel on Climate Change is a team of 60 independent scientists who will study the impact of tourism through an environmental lens. HRH Princess Haifa bint Muhammad Al Saud described the panel’s first task as a “stocktake” of Saudi Arabia’s environments to provide much-needed baseline surveys.

This methodology will be used to define sustainable tourism, with the vice minister adding that to “think globally, we must act locally”. The findings will be reported at next year’s Cop28 in Dubai.

The vice minister added that she wants the world to hold Saudi Arabia’s nascent tourism industry to be held accountable, adding that “tourism was too big to fail”.

Find out more about the MGI summit and SGI forum here: greeninitiatives.gov.sa