RIYADH — There has been a significant increase in the volume of spending in the domestic tourism sector during the first eight months of 2019, reaching SR33.8 billion from SR 31.3 billion during the same period last year. Tourist inflow recorded an increase while the outflow of tourists dropped by 5.8 percent during the period, according to a recent report of the Tourism Information and Research Center (MAS) at the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH). The report pointed out that the domestic tourist traffic registered an increase of 3.4 percent to 30 million trips from January to August 2019 comparing with the same period last year. There has been a total of 156.5 million tourism nights during the period as against 156.2 million tourism nights in 2018, the Saudi Press Agency reported. The report also showed that the inbound tourism has witnessed a remarkable increase during the past two months with the total tourist trips for the months of July and August 2019, which coincide the annual summer vacation and Haj seasons, account for 3.2 million passengers compared to three million passengers during the same period in 2018. Their total value of spending reached SR36.2 billion compared to SR33 billion during the same period last year. Inbound tourists spent more than 56 million nights over the last two months, compared to 52.9 million for the same period in 2018. According to the MAS report, the number of tourists who traveled outside the Kingdom during the period from January to August dropped by 5.8 percent, compared to the same period last year. The tourist outflow during the annual summer vacation during the months of July and August fell to 4.4 million passengers as against 4.6 million passengers for the same period in 2018. The report noted that the volume of tourism nights spent by travelers outside the Kingdom in July and August this year accounted for 78.4 million, a decrease of 4.6 percent from the same period in 2018. They spent nearly SR16.4 billion during this period, down by 5.9 percent from the same summer period last year.
