The Middle East is forecast to become the fastest-growing Travel & Tourism region in the world between 2026 and 2036, with sector GDP expected to expand at an annual rate of 6.3%, according to the latest World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) research.
At the heart of that expansion is Saudi Arabia, which WTTC identifies as the region’s tourism leader. The Kingdom is already the Middle East’s largest Travel & Tourism economy and its biggest tourism investment market, while international visitor spending is forecast to more than double over the coming decade.
WTTC’s latest Global Trends Report puts the total economic contribution of Travel & Tourism in Saudi Arabia at 14.1% of GDP, reflecting the increasingly important role the sector is playing in the Kingdom’s economic transformation.
That figure does, however, require an important qualification.
It should not be confused with Saudi Arabia’s official measure of tourism’s direct contribution to GDP, which the Vision 2030 Annual Report puts at 5% in 2025, against a target of 10% by 2030.
WTTC uses a considerably broader methodology, calculating the overall economic contribution of Travel & Tourism, including wider indirect and induced economic activity associated with the sector. Saudi Arabia’s official Tourism Direct GDP measure focuses on economic value generated directly in response to tourism consumption.
In other words, WTTC is not saying that hotels, airlines, tour operators and other directly tourism-related activities alone generate 14.1% of Saudi GDP.
But whichever measure is used, the underlying trend is clear: Saudi Arabia is emerging as the principal engine of a Middle Eastern tourism economy that WTTC expects to outperform every other region of the world over the next decade.
Middle East tourism economy heading towards US$605 billion
WTTC expects the Middle East’s Travel & Tourism GDP to reach approximately US$605 billion by 2036, driven by continuing investment in tourism infrastructure, aviation, hospitality and new destinations.
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Qatar are identified as key contributors to that expansion.
Together, the four countries generated around US$272 billion in Travel & Tourism GDP in 2025. WTTC expects their combined contribution to rise to approximately US$435 billion by 2036, adding more than US$160 billion in little more than a decade.
Saudi Arabia is expected to play the leading role.
WTTC’s research shows that the Kingdom has already established itself as the largest Travel & Tourism economy in the Middle East, while the enormous volume of capital being deployed suggests that a significant part of its tourism growth is still to come.
The transformation is particularly striking because Saudi Arabia only opened broadly to international leisure tourism in 2019.
In less than a decade, tourism has moved from being a relatively small component of an economy dominated by hydrocarbons and religious travel to one of the central pillars of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 diversification strategy.
Saudi Arabia leads regional investment
Perhaps the clearest indication of Saudi Arabia’s long-term ambitions comes from investment.
More than US$24 billion was invested in Saudi Travel & Tourism in 2025, according to WTTC, putting the Kingdom among the world’s ten largest tourism capital-investment markets.
Investment increased by 19.4% in a single year, one of the 15 fastest growth rates recorded globally.
Saudi Arabia is now investing more than two-and-a-half times as much in Travel & Tourism as the UAE, the Middle East’s second-largest tourism investment market.
And the expansion is expected to continue well beyond Vision 2030.
WTTC forecasts Saudi Travel & Tourism investment to grow at a compound annual rate of 4.7% between 2026 and 2036.
That investment encompasses far more than hotels.
New airports, resorts, roads, rail infrastructure, marinas, cultural attractions, entertainment venues and entirely new destinations are being developed as the Kingdom attempts to create an integrated tourism economy capable of competing at the highest international level.
The Public Investment Fund has been a major catalyst, particularly during the initial development of some of the Kingdom’s largest destination projects, while regulatory reforms and investment programmes are increasingly seeking to bring private domestic and international capital into the sector.
From masterplans to bookable destinations
One of the most important developments for the international travel trade is that Saudi Arabia’s tourism transformation is increasingly visible on the ground.
For several years, much of the international discussion surrounding Saudi tourism focused on spectacular masterplans and projects that would open at some point in the future.
That is changing.
AlUla has become an established international cultural and luxury destination, combining its extraordinary archaeological heritage with an expanding portfolio of high-end accommodation and experiences.
The Red Sea is progressively opening luxury resorts across its island and mainland locations, creating an entirely new high-end coastal tourism proposition.
At AMAALA, the first luxury properties are beginning to welcome guests as the destination develops its positioning around wellness, the marine environment and ultra-luxury hospitality.
Diriyah, centred around the UNESCO World Heritage Site of At-Turaif, is simultaneously emerging as one of the Kingdom’s major cultural and heritage destinations.
Riyadh and Jeddah are undergoing transformations of their own, with new hotels, restaurants, cultural attractions, entertainment venues and major events adding to the visitor proposition.
For international travel advisors, this changes the way Saudi Arabia can be sold.
Rather than being principally a touring or cultural destination, the Kingdom can increasingly support sophisticated itineraries combining heritage, cities, desert, mountains, Red Sea resorts, gastronomy, wellness, entertainment and major events.
Saudi Arabia driving regional growth
WTTC has repeatedly highlighted Saudi Arabia’s contribution to the wider Middle Eastern tourism economy.
“The Middle East continued to deliver strong Travel & Tourism growth in 2025, with Saudi Arabia playing a central role in driving this success and emerging as a leader in the region, with growth nearly double the global average,” said Gloria Guevara, President and CEO of WTTC.
“The Middle East’s performance in 2025 highlighted the strength and long-term potential of Travel & Tourism, with the sector continuing to act as a key driver of economic growth, job creation, and international connectivity across the region.”
Saudi Arabia’s advantage lies partly in the sheer breadth of the tourism economy it is attempting to create.
The Kingdom already possesses one of the world’s largest religious tourism markets, centred on Makkah and Madinah.
That established market is now being complemented by leisure, business, cultural, sporting and entertainment tourism.
At the same time, a large domestic tourism market provides a level of underlying demand that many emerging destinations do not possess.
150 million tourists by 2030
The speed of visitor growth has already forced Saudi Arabia to revise its ambitions upwards.
Vision 2030 originally established a target of 100 million domestic and international tourists annually by 2030.
That milestone was achieved years ahead of schedule, prompting the Kingdom to raise the target to 150 million tourists annually by 2030.
In 2025, Saudi Arabia recorded more than 93 million domestic tourists and 29 million international visitors.
Religious travel continues to account for a substantial proportion of inbound tourism, but the international market is becoming increasingly diversified as leisure, business and events attract new categories of visitor.
That diversification is important economically.
The objective is not simply to increase arrivals, but to encourage visitors to stay longer, travel to different parts of the Kingdom and spend across a broader range of tourism products.
WTTC expects that strategy to produce significant results.
Its latest research forecasts that international visitor spending in Saudi Arabia will more than double over the next decade.
Business tourism adds another dimension
Business travel is emerging as another major component of the Kingdom’s tourism growth.
Saudi Arabia’s position as one of the Middle East’s principal investment markets has generated increasing demand for corporate travel, conferences, exhibitions and international events.
Riyadh has been a particular beneficiary as multinational businesses establish or expand their presence in the capital.
The momentum is likely to accelerate as the Kingdom prepares for Expo 2030 in Riyadh and the FIFA World Cup 2034.
Both events will require substantial additional investment in accommodation, aviation, transport and visitor infrastructure while providing Saudi Arabia with sustained global exposure well beyond the current Vision 2030 programme.
The effect extends beyond the tourism industry itself.
Business visitors generate demand across hotels, aviation, restaurants, ground transportation, professional services, entertainment and retail, illustrating the wider economic impact that WTTC seeks to capture in its Travel & Tourism GDP calculations.
Understanding the 14.1% figure
WTTC’s estimate that Travel & Tourism now represents 14.1% of Saudi Arabia’s GDP is undoubtedly eye-catching.
But the distinction between WTTC’s measure and Saudi Arabia’s official statistics is important.
The Saudi Vision 2030 Annual Report 2025 puts tourism’s direct contribution to GDP at 5%.
That is already substantial progress towards the Kingdom’s stated target of 10% by 2030.
Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Statistics uses Tourism Direct GDP, based on the internationally recognised Tourism Satellite Account methodology, to measure economic activity generated directly by tourism consumption.
WTTC seeks to measure something broader.
Its calculations incorporate the economic activity supported by Travel & Tourism across supply chains and through the spending generated by the sector.
The difference helps explain why WTTC’s figure is considerably higher than the official Saudi measure.
The two numbers should therefore not be viewed as interchangeable.
The 5% figure measures tourism’s direct contribution, while WTTC’s 14.1% attempts to quantify its wider economic footprint.
Tourism spreads through the Saudi economy
That wider footprint is particularly relevant to Saudi Arabia because tourism has deliberately been used as a mechanism for stimulating other parts of the non-oil economy.
Building new destinations creates demand for construction and real estate.
New resorts require food producers, logistics, technology and professional services.
Visitor growth supports aviation, airports, ground transport, restaurants and retail.
Cultural tourism stimulates museums, heritage conservation and the creative industries, while the growth of sports and entertainment tourism supports entirely new sectors of the visitor economy.
Tourism is also creating a growing employment and training ecosystem for Saudi nationals.
International hotel companies are expanding recruitment and training programmes, while destination developers and Saudi tourism businesses are creating new career paths in hospitality, events, aviation, destination management and visitor services.
The result is that tourism’s influence increasingly extends well beyond businesses conventionally classified as tourism companies.
A decade of exceptional Middle East growth ahead
WTTC’s longer-term forecast suggests this transformation will increasingly become a regional story.
The 6.3% annual Travel & Tourism GDP growth expected across the Middle East between 2026 and 2036 would make it the fastest-growing region globally.
The forecast reflects an extraordinary concentration of tourism investment across the Gulf.
The UAE continues to expand its already mature tourism economy, while Qatar is building on the infrastructure and global profile created around the FIFA World Cup.
Oman is accelerating investment in luxury, nature and cultural tourism.
But Saudi Arabia stands apart in terms of the scale of its domestic market, the number and size of destinations under development and the volume of investment being committed.
Crucially, much of the new Saudi tourism capacity has yet to come online.
Hotels, resorts, attractions and infrastructure currently under construction will progressively enter the market over the coming years, meaning billions of dollars of investment already committed have yet to translate fully into visitor capacity or tourism revenues.
From emerging market to regional leader
The latest WTTC forecasts therefore mark a significant change in the narrative surrounding tourism in both Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East.
The question is no longer whether the region can become a major global tourism player.
WTTC’s figures suggest that it already is – and that its share of the global tourism economy is set to increase substantially over the next decade.
For Saudi Arabia, the transformation is particularly dramatic.
The Kingdom has exceeded its original 100-million-tourist target years ahead of schedule, tourism’s direct contribution to GDP has reached 5%, more than US$24 billion is being invested in the sector annually, and international visitor spending is forecast to more than double.
At the same time, new destinations and luxury resorts continue to open, adding real, bookable tourism capacity to what was until recently largely a pipeline of future projects.
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