Saudi’s tourism ministry appoints Gloria Guevera Manzo as chief special advisor

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Tourism has appointed Gloria Guevera Manzo to the post of chief special advisor to Ahmed Al Khateeb, the Minister of Tourism.

Manzo was most recently the CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).

As a special advisor to the Minister of Tourism, Gloria will leverage more than 25 years of tourism sector experience to help facilitate international collaborations, develop human capital and contribute to the delivery of the kingdom’s tourism investments under Vision 2030, a statement said.

Ahmed Al Khateeb said: “Saudi Arabia’s tourism industry has incredible potential and is already supporting economic growth and job creation across the kingdom.

“We have a strong national heritage and thousands of unique stories to be told. Gloria brings international expertise and a tremendous global network from her time representing the global tourism and travel sector as the CEO of WTTC and direct experience with evolving a nascent tourism industry from her time as Secretary of Tourism in Mexico, that will help us as our large-scale investment in tourism moves to the next level.”

“Tourism is the most promising sector in Saudi Arabia; this has been evident since 2019 when the kingdom first opened for international visitors,” said Gloria Guevara Manzo.

“In 2020, the Saudi leadership has done an incredible job managing the Covid-19 crisis and building its domestic tourism while continuing to advocate for global industry alignment and the recovery, and I am confident that my many years of expertise can help accelerate the next phase of development,” she continued.

“Over 50 per cent of the global travel and tourism workforce is female and Saudi Arabia is rapidly scaling up the inclusion of women, so I also hope my appointment will serve to empower more Saudi women to pursue careers in tourism, aspire towards leadership positions, and fulfil Vision 2030’s female empowerment goals,” she added.

Saudi Arabia has achieved progress, playing a key role in the revival of the tourism sector after the pandemic through its G20 presidency, which achieved a joint pledge from participating nations to collaborate on developing sustainable, authentic tourism experiences; issuing more than 400,000 tourism visas in the first six months since the launch of its new tourist visa system in September 2019 and launching a SAR400bn tourism fund and a SAR2bn Tourism Partners programme, the statement added.

The Ministry of Tourism is spearheading the sector’s development towards the Vision 2030 goals of increasing tourism’s contribution to GDP from 3 per cent to more than 10 per cent, creating an additional one million jobs for Saudi nationals and increasing visitor numbers to 100 million by 2030.