Saudi Arabia’s push to attract 150mn visitors and create more than one million tourism jobs by 2030 will hinge on whether its own nationals can move into specialist and leadership roles, industry figures said ahead of the inaugural WTM Spotlight Riyadh, according to a statement from the organisers on August 26.
The event, running September 8 to 10 at the Riyadh Front Exhibition & Conference Center, arrives as the Kingdom’s tourism workforce has already passed one million but remains heavily reliant on foreign labour, sharpening a debate over how rapid job creation becomes lasting national capability.
WTM Spotlight Riyadh is the first Saudi edition of the World Travel Market portfolio, run by exhibitions group RX, part of London-listed RELX (LSE:REL).
The Kingdom already has just over one million people employed in tourism activities, but only about a quarter are Saudi nationals, said Ibrahim Osta, Senior Economic Growth Director and Global Tourism Lead at Chemonics International, citing figures from the General Authority for Statistics.
Osta said the challenge is no longer generating employment but ensuring Saudi talent can enter the sector, build expertise and progress.
“Saudi Arabia has created tourism employment at remarkable speed. The next phase is about depth,” said Osta, who will moderate a talent and leadership panel on the event’s final day. He added scale and depth had to advance together for rapid growth to become national capability.
Osta said training centres alone do not create careers, arguing that occupational standards, employer demand, recognised qualifications and hiring pathways have to connect before talented nationals can see a credible route into leadership.
The panel draws senior figures from across the sector, including officials from the King Salman Gate Project, Red Sea Global, Qiddiya, King Saud University and the Ministry of Tourism, alongside Jamaica’s tourism minister Edmund Bartlett.
Salem Al Shahrani, Chief of Staff at Rua Al Haram Al Makki within the King Salman Gate Project, said the tourism workforce of the future spanned engineering, hospitality, retail, culture, mobility and technology as a single operating system.
He said the project near the Grand Mosque in Mecca is expected to generate more than 300,000 jobs by 2036.
For inbound partners and international brands, the practical read is that Saudization is shifting from a compliance line into a genuine recruitment constraint, and destinations able to demonstrate credible career pathways will have an edge in securing licences, partnerships and government goodwill. The event itself signals WTM‘s bet that Saudi Arabia is now a permanent fixture on the global trade calendar rather than a passing story.
Al Shahrani said the opportunity was to build Saudi expertise across the full range of professions rather than treating tourism careers only in frontline terms. Organisers said the roles emerging will demand skills spanning AI and data analytics, revenue management, immersive technology, crowd management, sustainability and cross-cultural service.
Danielle Curtis, Regional Portfolio Director for the UAE at RX, said the next phase was about ensuring the talent pipeline evolves at the same pace as the destinations, giga-projects and hospitality developments coming online.