Economic contribution of GCC tourism reaches $254.7bn

Muscat: The total direct and indirect economic value of the tourism sector in the GCC countries rose to approximately $254.7 billion in 2025, while the number of tourism-related jobs reached nearly 4.5 million jobs.

The "Strategic Tourism Ambition in the GCC Countries" report, issued by the GCC Statistical Centre (GCC-Stat), clarified that the Gulf tourism sector achieved progress in implementing the targets of the Gulf Strategy for Tourism 2022–2030, with the average progress rate across its six goals reaching approximately 73.8 percent through 2025.

The report identified six main goals for the strategy: increasing the number of inbound trips, direct gross domestic product (GDP) of the travel and tourism sector, inbound tourist spending, the sector's share of GDP, domestic tourist spending, and direct jobs.

The number of inbound visitors to GCC countries reached 89.9 million visitors in 2025, achieving 69.9 percent of the 2030 target of 128.7 million visitors, while inbound tourist spending rose to $131.9 billion, achieving 70.2 percent of the $188 billion target.

Domestic tourist spending reached $42.9 billion, achieving 87.6 percent of the 2030 target of $49 billion, while direct GDP of the travel and tourism sector recorded $101.7 billion, representing 69.8 percent of the 2030 target of $145.8 billion.

The contribution of the travel and tourism sector to the GDP of GCC countries rose to 4.6 percent in 2025, achieving 70.8 percent of the 2030 target of 6.5 percent.

Total direct jobs in the sector reached 2.2 million jobs, achieving 74.7 percent of the 2030 target of approximately 2.9 million jobs.

These indicators reinforced the presence of GCC countries in global tourism, as their share of total international tourism reached 5 percent and of global tourism revenues 6.9 percent in 2025.

The report pointed out that GCC countries occupy the top six positions in the Arab world in passport strength according to the Henley Passport Index 2026, with a cumulative improvement in the ranking of Gulf passports.