Saudi Women Drive Nearly 50% of Tourism Workforce Growth

By: WE Staff | Friday, 3 October 2025

• During WTTC 2025, Saudi Arabia highlighted the great positive impact of the sector through the implementation of the digital transformation.
• The share of female workers in the tourism sector of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has grown to close to 50%.

Minister of Tourism, Ahmed Al-Khateeb, said that Saudi Arabia is a model all over the world for the successful implementation of numerous programs and the training of women in the tourism sector, where their participation has been raised up to 50%. He was speaking at the 25th World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) Global Summit, held in Rome from September 28 to 30.

He continued, “The Kingdom is a global model to be emulated, as it has succeeded in providing hundreds of thousands of training opportunities and increasing women's participation in the tourism workforce to nearly 50%. These numbers become even more significant when considering the sector's future projections, as one-third of the new jobs globally to be added by 2035 will come from the travel and tourism sector, making it a unique engine for global economic growth.”

The main conference in the tourism sector brought together the leading specialists, decision-makers, and industry leaders from more than 70 countries. The Kingdom was the center of the whole summit, presenting a world model that has been receiving much attention with the numerous awards of the different sectors such as innovation support, facilitation of international cooperation and training and qualification of workers in the tourism field.

Throughout the summit, Al-Khateeb has witnessed several major events. Besides, he attended the opening event of the report “Future of work in travel and tourism” which is a global contribution with the WTTC, and in addition to that, he engaged in the main panel discussion under the title “Connecting continents: Crafting collaborative tourism policies for a more interconnected future.”

Despite not being directly engaged in the summit, he went along to some meetings with world leaders from the public and private sectors. Among these was a roundtable meeting with the chief executive officers of several leading private-sector companies.