As Saudi Arabia steps up its “Visit Saudi” campaign, marketing itself as an emerging tourist destination, ALQST today issued a new travel advisory with essential background information for potential visitors.
Introduction
With its vast natural beauty and historic archaeological sites, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has recently started to capitalise on its obvious attractions as a potential tourist destination, despite a lack of infrastructure, as part of a strategy to diversify its economy. The aim of this travel advisory is to provide people thinking of visiting the country with essential background information on the human rights situation there, especially as nowadays this can sometimes affect foreign visitors directly as well. It hopes to prevent them from getting into trouble, or indeed perhaps unwittingly becoming propaganda tools.
This advisory doesn’t address the particular risks faced by those doing business in Saudi Arabia, or by the millions of migrant workers drawn to the country as labourers and housemaids. Nor does it detail the security-related risks in certain areas of the kingdom, such as along the southern border with Yemen, where Saudi intervention in the civil war has contributed to a major humanitarian crisis. Instead, this advisory offers visitors – especially those conscious of the impact of tourism on host populations, and wishing to act as ethical travellers – essential background information on relevant human rights risks and concerns.
