Tourism to provide 400,000 jobs in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s tourism sector is expected to create more than 400,000 jobs in the next five years, said a Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF) official to Arab News.

HRDF, in coordination with the Ministry of Labour and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), is working to assess the needs of the sector, and train Saudi nationals to fill in the void. These measures will also contribute to the Saudization drive, and will increase the involvement of locals in the said sector.

While discussing the national tourism resources, and its challenges and prospects, HRDF deputy executive director Abdulkarim Al-Nujaidi said that the fund along with SCTA and ministry of labour is currently working on 56 schemes to increase the number of Saudi nationals in the sector. Most of these projects have been launched already.

Mohammed Al-Majed, chief operating officer at the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) added that the tourism and hospitality sector suffers from a severe lack of qualified nationals. "Efforts are on to developing and delivering training programs that meet the demand of the labour market and are also in line with the international standards.”

He further said that a plan to train 250,000 professionals for tourism and hospitality sector by 2018 is already underway.

"The technical College of Tourism and Hospitality was launched to support the sector, with another three tourism colleges in Najran, Khamis Mushait, and Al-Ahsa scheduled to be completed in the next four years. We are working on encouraging young nationals to join the hospitality and tourism sector in the Kingdom, as well as supporting professional development for all professions and career paths," said Fawaz Moumjnah, head of human resources of Hilton in the KSA.