A report has shown that there are 124,662 hotel rooms in the Kingdom of which 9,100 rooms are in Riyadh, and that 50,000 rooms are currently being constructed in various parts of the Kingdom including the mega economic cities that will be completed in the next three years. Dr. Salah Al-Bakheet, Deputy President of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), told Saudi Press Agency that the SCTA has worked out an integrated plan to improve and upgrade the tourist housing sector and create a qualitative and quantitative leap in the sector in two years' time. He pointed out that the plan includes several programs which will handle all the shortcomings and loopholes in this vital sector especially the lack of balance between supply and demand in some of parts of the Kingdom and the shortage of hotel units during peak seasons and the poor standard of service in most of the tourist facilities in the country. “The plan also tackles the lack of well-defined classifications that will help in increasing investments at different levels, the gap between services and the cost of services, and the development marketing programs of the tourist housing sector. Dr. Al-Bakheet said the commission has issued guidelines showing the requirements needed for obtaining licenses besides announcing the new criteria that will be applied for the classification of hotels in the Kingdom. The SCTA, he said, will use the “stars system” which is used worldwide for categorization of the hotels. __
