Saudi Arabia recorded strong tourism growth during the first half of 2025 (H1 2025), underscoring the Kingdom’s efforts to boost the tourism sector in line with Vision 2030.
According to the Saudi Ministry of Tourism, the Kingdom received a total of 60.9 million inbound and domestic tourists during H1 2025, accounting for a 0.1% growth.
In the meantime, the total spending for domestic and foreign tourists reached SAR 161.4 billion, marking a 4% growth compared to the same period last year.
The Tourism Ministry’s data also showed that the average length of stay reached 6.7 nights for domestic tourists and 18.6 nights for inbound tourists.
The largest share of inbound visits (48%) was for religious purposes, including Hajj, Umrah and visiting Madinah. Meanwhile, visiting friends and relatives dominated domestic trips (39%), followed by leisure (28%).
Makkah topped destinations for both inbound and domestic tourism (10 million and 14.5 million, respectively), followed by Eastern Province (2 million and 7.2 million, respectively) and Riyadh (1 million and 9.1 million, respectively).
Moreover, Saudi Arabia received 1.5 million inbound tourists from Egypt, making it the top source market. Pakistan came in the second place with 1.1 million tourists, followed by Indonesia, Kuwait and India, each with 0.9 million tourists.
The Kingdom has put great emphasis on tourism as a key pillar of Vision 2030 to drive economic growth and diversification. This has been evident in mega-projects, such as NEOM, The Red Sea Project, and Diriyah, which aim to transform Saudi Arabia into a premier tourism hub.
As a result, the Kingdom has reached the target of attracting 100 million visitors 7 years ahead of schedule, adjusting its goal to 150 million annual visits by 2030.
