Saudi Arabia Businesses May Finally Adopt Digital Travel Booking Due to Pandemic
Skift Take
You can't change culture overnight, but there could be opportunities for corporate travel agencies to make their mark — if they're willing to take the kingdom's ambitious modernization plan seriously.
Tourism may be getting some traction in Saudi Arabia, not least because residents aren’t permitted to leave while its neighbors are allowed in. But it’s a different story for the corporate travel sector, one of the kingdom's biggest agencies is discovering.
Seera Group, which manages corporate travel through its Elaa division and holidays via its Almosafer brand, is seeing a faster leisure recovery due to an international flight ban and a culture of booking business trips offline.
Comparisons can be drawn with China, which is seeing a domestic tourism revival, but in Saudi Arabia, digital penetration is a lot lower; business trips are mostly booked using small independent agencies.
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Abdulrahman Mutrib, Seera's executive vice president and group chief technology officer, estimates Elaa is used by just 5 percent of businesses in the kingdom. "We’re barely scratching the su
