Saudi Arabia’s Air Connectivity Program

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(12/03/24)
 In February, Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Saudi Arabia’s
Minister of Tourism, announced that the Kingdom had welcomed 27
million foreign visitor arrivals in 2023, an increase of 156% on
the year 2019, pre-COVID.

Saudi Arabia has extremely ambitious plans for its
tourism sector, and is targeting 70 million international visitor
arrivals by the year 2030.

To accommodate those travellers, some 280,000
hotel rooms are already available in the country and the goal is
to have 550,000 by 2030.

Anyone who reads Travel News Asia on a daily base
will have no doubt that they can achieve those numbers, as rarely
a week goes by where at least one hotel company does not sign one
or multiple new hotels in the country.

Saudi Arabia is not just building to boost
numbers, however, it is also learning from other countries and
wants to avoid mistakes made and ensure that quality in
construction and services is maintained. To do that, new tourism
regulations have been introduced and inspection campaigns are
ongoing to ensure compliance. The government says it closed more
than 250 hotels in 2023 alone.

Saudi Arabia will need much more than just hotel
rooms to achieve its goals, it will also need to improve its air
connectivity and even has an Air Connectivity Programme (ACP) that
addresses this precise need.

To learn more about Saudi Arabia’s Air
Connectivity Programme (ACP), Steven Howard of Travel News
Asia sat down with Rashed Alshammari, Vice President Commercial,
at Routes Asia 2024 in Langkawi, Malaysia.

In this interview, filmed on 27 February 2024,
Steven asks about Saudi Arabia’s post-COVID recovery, what
challenges the Kingdom faces in trying to boost its air
connectivity and which markets it is targeting the most.

We discuss which airports around the world the ACP
programme monitors and learns from, how the ACP will grow in the
future and what needs to be done for Saudi Arabia to achieve its
ambitious goals.

All that and much, much more in the interview below
which is available in both HD video and
audio podcast formats.

Saudi Arabia’s Air Connectivity Program – Interview with Rashed Alshammari, Vice President Commercial

PODCAST

See also:

Saudi Arabia’s Air Connectivity Program –
HD Video Interview with Sultan Otaify, VP Strategy & Communication.

See:
HD Video Interviews from Routes Asia 2024 in Langkawi, Malaysia: 
U-Tapao Airport (UTP) Rayong /
Pattaya, Thailand – Interview with
Ampika Chadawong;
Sabah Tourism Board – Interview with
Julinus Jeffery Jimit, CEO;

Perth Airport (PER) in Western
Australia – Interview with Stephanie
Juszkiewicz, SVP;

Cam Ranh Airport (CXR) in Nha Trang, Vietnam – Interview with Le
Thi Hong Minh;
Saudi Arabia’s Air Connectivity
Program – Interview with Rashed
Alshammari, VP Commercial;
Japan Tourism, World Expo 2025 and
Japan Expo 2025 – Interview with
Akira Watabe of JNTO;
Munich Airport (MUC) – Interview with
Michael Haeffner, Director Route and
Pax Development;
Berlin Airport (BER) – Interview with
Simon Miller, Senior Manager Market
Intelligence; and
Mercure Langkawi Pantai Cenang
Interview with Jasmine Keh, Hotel
General Manager; plus

16 Exclusive HD Video Interviews from Routes Europe 2024 in
Aarhus, Denmark;

9 Exclusive HD Video Interviews from Routes Asia 2024 in Langkawi, Malaysia;
15 Exclusive HD Video Interviews from Routes World 2023 in
Istanbul, Türkiye.

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