Tourism spending in Riyadh Province reached SAR 48.97 billion in 2025; the capital city alone is the Kingdom’s #1 domestic-spend destination at SAR 35.2 billion, with hotels averaging SAR 478 a night at 62% occupancy.
The Kingdom’s tourism economy hit SAR 303.7 billion in 2025 — inbound SAR 176.6 billion plus domestic SAR 127 billion — contributing 5.2% of GDP directly and employing over a million people in the sector.
Riyadh Province booked SAR 48.97 billion across 24.3 million visits. Hotels there run SAR 478 ADR at 62% occupancy (RevPAR SAR 295) across 57,700 licensed rooms — the capital prices above the national hotel average of SAR 385.
Riyadh city’s SAR 35.2 billion from overnight visitors tops the national city table — ahead of Makkah city’s SAR 15.6 billion and Jeddah’s SAR 18.2 billion on domestic spend. The mix: business travel from the HQ mandate, Riyadh Season’s entertainment economy, and a conference calendar stacked through the winter.
Inbound visitors who stay in hotels spend SAR 7,027 per trip on average nationally; Riyadh’s business-plus-events profile pushes the capital above that mean.
Travel-agency and DMC licences in Riyadh Province jumped 36% in a year; 10,207 tour guides are now licensed in the province, +109% — the service layer scaling ahead of the 150-million-visitor national target for 2030.
Saudi tourism statistics read like a pilgrimage ledger until you reach Riyadh’s line: no rituals, just revenue. The capital converts corporate mandates, concerts and boxing nights into the Kingdom’s top domestic spending figure — proof that manufactured demand, funded at sovereign scale, can behave like organic demand within five years.
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