A report issued by Tourism Information and Research Center (MAS) of Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCHT) has disclosed that the number of domestic tourist trips across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia over 2016 exceeded 47.5 million trips with a rise of 2.3%, compared to 2015 which registered more than 46.5 million domestic tourist trips. The report pointed out that spending value on local tourist trips in 2016 exceeded SR 44.9 billion, a decline by 6.4% compared to 2015. It emphasized the high number of domestic tourist nights in 2016 to reach 243.5 million tourist nights compared to 240.6 million nights in 2015 at a growth rate of 1.2%. It also pointed out that the number of coming tourist trips for 2015 amounted to 17.99 million trips compared to 18.05 for 2016 with a growth rate of 0.3%, with a rise in the number of tourist nights in 2016 to reach 197.6 million tourist nights compared to 193.1 million nights in 2015 at a growth rate of 2.3%. The statistical report also said that value of spending on the coming tourism trips has increased from SR 82.5 billion in 2015 to SR 92.3 billion in 2016, an increase of 11.8%. It attributed the increase of number of domestic tourist trips, especially the tourist destinations such as Makkah region and Asir region to the increase of the summer vacation period among other factors.
