Strengthening Saudi-China relations is vital for Riyadh and Beijing as the kingdom moves forward with Vision 2030 and China with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Saudi Arabia’s geo-economic axis to the east and China’s developing footprint on the kingdom’s economy. show how much bilateral relations have strengthened in recent years.
The synergies between Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia’s ambitious economic diversification program unveiled in 2016, and the BRI offer the potential to bring the two countries closer together in the coming years.
Tourism is a pillar of Saudi Vision 2030, and China ranked first globally in tourism resources in 2019, with Chinese making 155 million trips and spending more than $250 billion on vacations outside China. Due to the COVID pandemic, the 2020 and 2021 numbers have been reduced to 20 and 26 million tourists, respectively.
The Saudi government will generate $46 billion in tourism revenue annually until the end of this decade, and can achieve strong expansion with more Chinese tourists coming to Saudi Arabia. , the sector’s realm profit reached $19. 85 billion, the highest on record.
As China recovers from major economic setbacks caused by the country’s strict zero-COVID policies, Saudi Arabia aims to tap into its tourism market, as the number of Chinese traveling as tourists will naturally increase. In March, Saudi Tourism Authority Executive Director Fahd Hamidaddin met with China’s Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan to discuss launching joint tourism projects to help the kingdom attract around 4 million Chinese tourists a year until 2030.
Beijing considers the good fortune of Vision 2030 to be incredible for China’s own interests in the Middle East. If the kingdom’s economy fails to diversify beyond oil, there will be a devastating economic collapse that may lead to new layers of instability in the region, threatening the BRI and China’s global industry ambitions that have the most to gain from lasting peace and stability in the Arabian Peninsula.
The Saudis are “determined to make tourism and recreation their national industry for the time being after oil and energy. Chinese tourism is a potentially massive market for them,” said Hussein Ibish, resident senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW). Jazeera. ” If they can tap into this vast potential, it will be a huge step forward in moving beyond the general reliance on hydrocarbons for currency and trade. “
“Many Gulf resorts hope to capitalize on the return of Chinese tourists after years of lockdown in China,” Robert Mogielnicki, senior resident researcher at AGSIW, told Al Jazeera.
As Saudi Arabia strives to become one of those hubs, Ibish added, “Chinese tourists have many imaginable reasons to make the trip, including to revel in a culture and environment radically different from their own. “
As Ibish explained, the kingdom has 3 main attractions that can attract many tourists. First, ancient Saudi sites, such as the oasis city of al-Ula in Medina province, have some of the oldest monuments and renovations on the planet. Secondly, the Red Sea coast, mountains and rocky landscapes of Saudi Arabia have a herbal appearance that would attract tourists. Third, as the Saudi economy diversifies, there is a developing entertainment sector that offers concerts, cultural fairs, sporting events, car shows, etc. By 2030, it can potentially attract many tourists to the kingdom.
According to Ahmed Aboudouh, a non-resident researcher on Middle East systems at the Atlantic Council, Saudi Arabia appears to have studied Japan’s domestic tourism strategy and Australia’s China 2020 strategic plan very closely.
These plans include “more flexible visa policies, better air connections, facility improvements and other targeted approaches, in addition to employing classic Chinese media and popular social media platforms to advertise Saudi destinations and deploying payment technology solutions,” Aboudouh said.
“The buying power of Chinese tourists will not only supply the local market and create jobs in Saudi Arabia, but also generate chains between China and the Gulf and encourage the aviation industry in the region. In addition to [its] great potential to help Saudi plans to diversify the economy. . . Chinese tourists are a very important component of the cultural exchange of the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two,” he added.
There is a lot to say about the festival for Chinese tourists. If Saudi Arabia attracts more, it may undermine the number of Chinese tourists that other Gulf states and European countries attract so far.
“There is a regional festival for tourists,” Mogielnicki explained. [T]he people will have winners and losers when it comes to China’s most sensitive tourist destinations in the Gulf. “
Aboudouh told Al Jazeera that the kingdom’s incentives for Chinese tourism may cause a festival with Oman and the neighboring UAE, which “will manifest itself in more incentives, donations and regulations aimed at empowering local agencies and dealing with the Chinese market. “
Within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the intensification of the festival for Chinese tourists may put Beijing in a difficult position in terms of its “hedging” strategy aimed at balancing Beijing’s smart relations with all Gulf countries by avoiding getting too close to one country. Therefore, Aboudouh hopes to see a “balanced Chinese tourism policy towards prominent Gulf destinations and a focus on the BRI and the Global Development Initiative to avoid alienating one of China’s Gulf partners in the region. “
But, for experts, it may not inevitably be a festive zero-sum game for Gulf countries. The rail and visa systems can be used to build connectivity between Saudi Arabia and the other five GCC member states, which “may allow Gulf countries to distribute the wealth of incoming tourism in the region in a way that was more difficult to do in the past,” Mogielnicki said.
Most of the communication about the kingdom’s multidimensional relations with China is not about tourism, which is not the main aspect of ties between the two nations. The main aspects of relations between China and Saudi Arabia seem to be oil, industry and sensitive technologies.
Still, the expansion of tourism ties will do much to deepen China-Saudi relations in a way that goes beyond economics. “The tourism angle is helping to complete the other contours of this expanding relationship,” Mogielnicki told Al Jazeera.
“The accumulation of tourist flows from China to Saudi Arabia will also have a social and cultural effect on the kingdom. “
As Ibish explained, expanding tourism ties between China and Saudi Arabia “would go a long way toward strengthening the Saudi economic transition and selling people-to-people exchanges and understanding, which can be the basis for other facets of a more powerful partnership. “