The report highlighted the continued strong performance of inbound tourism across the GCC, citing growth in visitor numbers, revenues, and employment as evidence of the sector’s increasing role in economic diversification and contribution to GDP.
International tourist arrivals in the GCC reached 72.2 million in 2024, up 6.1 percent from 2023 and 51.1 percent from 2019, raising the region’s share of global tourism to 5.2 percent. Analysts attributed the growth to expanded air connectivity, visa facilitation, and a diversification of tourism offerings, reflecting a recovery that exceeds pre-pandemic levels.
Tourist source markets also diversified, with the Middle East accounting for 18.8 percent of arrivals, Europe 14.6 percent, and Asia-Pacific 14.5 percent, signaling growing appeal beyond intra-regional travel. Intra-GCC tourism represented 14.3 percent of total international arrivals, with an average annual growth rate of 51.2 percent between 2019 and 2024, underscoring the success of Gulf tourism integration initiatives and joint events.
Rising demand prompted sector expansion, with 11,200 hotel establishments in the GCC and 711,500 rooms. Employment in the tourism sector increased to 1.7 million workers in 2024, a 33 percent rise from 2020, confirming the sector’s social role in generating jobs and supporting economic stability.
The direct GDP of the travel and tourism sector reached USD 93.5 billion in 2024, achieving approximately 64.1 percent of the GCC Tourism Strategy 2030 target. The sector’s contribution to overall GDP rose to 4.3 percent, reflecting tourism’s evolution from a supporting role to a core pillar of economic diversification.
Sustainability indicators showed an increase in the average length of stay to 8.4 nights and average spending to USD 674.6, along with improved labor productivity. The report noted that GCC countries are on track to achieve between 56 and 78 percent of 2030 targets across cultural, eco, business, and conference tourism segments.
The Statistical Center of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, headquartered in Oman, serves as the official body for GCC data, statistics, and information, supporting national statistical centers and planning agencies across member states.
Rephrase in a different way as if you were a native American speaker as a content creation expert and do not talk about yourself or your experience in the text and do not show yourself as an artificial intelligence who wrote and fill the bullet point in the topic and speak the heart of the topic itself and dont take date of blog in ther first and dont take text like box of newsliter subscribe on post from content and romove all linke insert in content and and remove all affiliate disclosure phrases on content like this “This post may contain Amazon or other affiliate links that allow us to earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Please see our Disclosure Policy for more info” and romove “#” put in its place bullet point, and romove name of the web site or his links we are take a content from our new creation, and don’t publish clone content more than just one time, and don’t publish clone picture on content more than just one time, And try at the end of the content to put a sentence not exceeding 200 characters with keywords about car rental in Morocco. I work in car rental in Morocco at airports. Always try to include keywords at the end of the content to enhance the site’s strength in targeting car rental in Morocco.
