Revitalizing Domestic Tourism in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Strategies for Intensifying and Encouraging Domestic Travel

Abstract

Domestic tourism plays a significant part in enhancing the economic resilience of any country. This is especially important for countries such as Saudi Arabia, where economic diversification has been a top priority as dictated within its Vision 2030. Research has confirmed that domestic tourism enhances the economic well-being of a country by supporting sustainability and resilience against negative economic international events. Domestic tourism has also been argued to be an important factor in encouraging cultural cohesiveness and unity, among other benefits. Despite the importance of domestic tourism, its fullest potential has not been achieved in Saudi Arabia. This has been attributed to restrictive cultural and traditional practices, high costs associated with domestic travel, underdeveloped tourist activities, and poor marketing campaigns to create awareness of domestic attractions.This study was designed to examine the role and effect of tourism activities, tourism costs, marketing strategies, and cultural practices in order to develop policy and practical recommendations that can help boost domestic tourism in the country. The research is anchored on theoretical frameworks, including destination marketing and management, push and pull factors, tourism motivation theory, and price sensitivity theory. A pragmatism research paradigm is adopted with a quantitative research design. Further, the study was designed to follow a deductive research approach.Among the findings of this research include the fact that leisure accounted for the largest proportion of tourism activities that encouraged domestic travel. However, tourism activities were rated slightly below average, indicating the need to improve and develop tourism activities in the country. It was also identified that tourism costs in the country were judged to be moderately affordable, with significant room for improvement. The majority of the respondents in the study were also identified to have experienced at least one form of cultural restriction while visiting different tourist destinations. Furthermore, the most visible marketing medium was social media, which suffered poor effectiveness in creating awareness of tourism activities and destinations in the country.Strategies to improve domestic tourism in the country were identified to include targeting and segmentation of the target audience in the country in marketing efforts. Other recommendations included diversification of tourism activities, adoption of dynamic pricing, and integration of cultural variables within the tourism destinations in the country. Theoretically, the findings of this study provide deeper insight into the existing theories regarding domestic tourism. The study provides insights into the overall effect of cultural factors, costs, marketing strategies, and tourism activities that will be applied in the academic world. Practically, this study provides actionable insights that will help tourism authorities and other stakeholders enact measures that will improve domestic tourism in the country.