- Saudi Attitudes Towards the Foreign Tourism to The Emirate of Dubai- A Study in the Geography of Tourism

Abstract

Tourism as industry became an important economy resource which countries with tourism potentials gets benefits of and that made the new studies focus on this industry and study. The variables that relate to it such as tourists, tourism cities, and the attractant tourism potentials and this study addresses one of those variables which is how Saudi tourists trend to travel to outside the country instead of inside especially travelling to Dubai whereas the study focus on reconnaissance tourists bearings out of questionnaire distributed on the tourists to know their social characteristics and their age groups and the reasons they travel outside the country for tourism and this study aims to know the foreign tourism patterns for the Saudi tourists and highlight the foreign tourism movements and also aims to shed the light on how it effects the economic and identify why Saudis does not prefer domestic tourism and the reasons Saudis especially likes Dubai.

This study looks to make the tourism exemplar in Saudi Arabia . This study uses the modern methods , statistical methods and Geographic Information System (G I S) program in making tables , maps and graphs This study help in increasing the Saudi tourist's awareness towards the domestic tourism and being a factor in its growth. The study reached anumber of conclusions and recommendations the most important of which are that the tourist trips from the Kingdom to the tourist destinations according to the purpose of the visit during the period (2002- 2015), the main motive is entertainment and holidays, family and friends visit, business and conferences, shopping, religious reasons, education Training, health and hospitalization, sports, and transit. Also, when studying the tourist patterns that the Saudi tourist intended to travel to Dubai, we find that the growth rate of trips by purpose of the visit increased by 73.7% during the period (2002- 2015).