Interview with Gloria Guevara Manzo, Chief Special Advisor to the Minister of Tourism

25 Mar Interview with Gloria Guevara Manzo, Chief Special Advisor to the Minister of Tourism

After several years representing your country, Mexico, as Tourism Minister, some more working in the US tourism sector, before the ministerial post, and a few more as the President of the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), you are one of the sector’s best known and most visible leaders. In 2021, you were called by the Minister of Tourism – Ahmed Al Khateeb – to be his Chief Special Advisor, at the time when this nation was transforming its economy giving tourism an unprecedented boost and protagonism. Can you explain to us your role and main responsibilities here?

As a former minister, I had the opportunity to work in my country and build the foundation that helped my nation. Of course, I did not do it by myself, it was with a very strong team. In coordination with the private sector, we built the foundation that allowed Mexico to develop and grow. Here, I am advising Minister Ahmed Al Khateeb and the different leaders of the ecosystem, to develop this sector.

This country has very impressive potential in terms of culture, adventure, and what I call assets in tourism. If you look at the size of the country, it is very similar to mine, almost two million square kilometers, but at the same time, it is a very young country as 70% of the population is aged 35 or younger. Of course, it was closed for so many years, but here you find heritage, adventure, sun and beach, and religious tourism as we have known for so many years. The potential is impressive.

My job is in two ends. One is to share my experience and advise the minister and the leaders on the things that we can do and the things that we can implement, from strategy to product development and investments. The second is to help them execute some special projects. Because of my experience in WTTC, I work very closely with 200 CEOs from around the world, leaders of global companies, and I have invited them to come to the Kingdom and discover this country.

Every month, we have visits from CEOs from different firms, such as Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, cruise companies, companies from the US, Europe, and Asia; from all over the world. As I know them, my job is to facilitate the visit and to invite them either to invest in the country or to bring in more travelers.

The second part of my role involves this country’s commitment to sustainability and sustainable tourism, which is very important. The climate agenda, or the green agenda, is part of Vision 2030. Vision 2030 is impressive because it has defined a roadmap and a very clear vision of where the country is going and how the Saudis see the future of this country. Tourism is a very important component of Vision 2030, and sustainability, of course.

I have been working in the sector for more than 30 years. We are impacted every time that there is a problem with climate change, every time there is a hurricane or a wildfire. Every single crisis, unfortunately, impacts our sector, but at the same time, we also produce CO2 emissions. Around 80% of the tourism sector comprises SMEs. For us, it is very important to join forces. I presented to His Royal Highness an initiative to create a center in Riyadh to help travel and tourism globally, to accelerate the transition to net zero, while we protect nature and engage with the communities.

That is an unprecedented initiative. It is called the Sustainable Tourism Global Center. I have been working with the minister, and the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Environment, and many others, in this very important initiative that is not going to help only the Kingdom, but the entire sector.

The third one is that last year, we hosted a very important summit. I used to be the leader and the CEO of WTTC. While I was there, Saudi competed and won to host this summit. I was very fortunate to be here when we hosted it. That was a great opportunity to showcase what the country is offering.

My job, bottom line, is to share my expertise, share some things that have worked in my country when I was the minister, but also share aspects that I had the opportunity to see that are working in other countries when I was the president of WTTC. That knowledge and expertise are brought here. The transformation and how they are accepting all the best practices from around the world so that we can do things not only in the same way but better is very impressive. What you see from one week to the next is amazing.

The other thing is the ecosystem that we have here. We have the Ministry of Tourism, which is the regulator. We have the Saudi Tourism Authority, which is the Tourism Board, the promoter. We also have the Tourism Development Fund that invests to develop this sector.

Within the ministry, we also have an air connectivity initiative, that is looking at the routes so that we can incentivize more connectivity from other airlines around the world. We have a Vice Minister, Princess Haifa Bint Muhammad Al Saud, who is very active. She is responsible for executing part of the strategy. We have a new entity that we just created recently called Red Sea Authority. Its responsibility is to regulate all the activities within the Red Sea, so we know exactly where the cruises and the yachts can go, and all the different ocean activities, but learning also from the success and the mistakes of others, which is very important. And of course, we interact with the other entities like the airports. It was announced that the biggest airport is going to be built here in Riyadh, and Riyadh Airlines, which is a new airline, as well. We also have digital projects.

Saudi Arabia has stood out for its vision, leadership, and resources in this transformation. As of today, what is the impact of tourism on Saudi Arabia’s GDP, and how much is expected to impact the country’s job market and economy over the next five years?

What is happening here, the transformation that this country is having, I have never seen that in my entire life. I speak with knowledge because, in the jobs that I had, I have seen different transformations. What is happening here is out of this world. His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, has this roadmap for all of us, and that is why it was very exciting for me to join the transformation, and very exciting to see how much importance is given to a sector that other countries sometimes take for granted. More than $1 trillion is being invested; half of that is between when the transformation started and 2030. To put it in context, it is very similar to the GDP of Mexico; it is unprecedented. Half is going to Neom and the balance to the rest of the projects.

The goal is to take travel and tourism from a 3% contribution of GDP to 10%. The goal by 2030 was to create one million jobs and to have 100 million travelers between domestic and international. The reality is that we are going to achieve that number this year, way before 2030. We believe that we are going to achieve 100 million this year. Originally, the mix of that total was going to be 55% domestic and 45% international. We are probably going to reach 70-30. Basically, we are growing faster than we anticipated.

When you look at the economy, in 2022 we were the fastest-growing country in the G20. Of course, a big portion of that is non-oil. The oil is doing fantastic, but the non-oil sectors are also doing quite well and we have seen an increase in international travel.

We need to build 600,000 rooms between now and 2030. We need more connectivity. That is why we announced a new airline, while more airlines are flying to Riyadh. We are also developing a lot of products. But at the same time, we already have a significant increase in the number of travelers. This is the country, according to the UNWTO, that has grown the most last year internationally, and domestic is growing significantly.

With the President of the WTTC, we spoke about the extension of the partnership with the Ministry of Tourism through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Can you give us the Saudi version of this partnership? What are the advantages and how it is going to help you improve tourism in the Kingdom?

The new partnership with the WTTC is to help us also to share best practices, have some workshops, and organize joint events here in the Kingdom. When I was in WTTC, I learned that, for 30 years, we have been doing economic research. WTTC has been measuring, in 185 countries around the world, the economic impact of the sector. However, there were no measurements on sustainability, the emissions, and the footprint. When I was there, I asked Oxford Economics to try to figure out if they could help us to measure it. After three years and a half, they came back with a very important report, and of course, someone needed to pay for that, because it was a new piece of work.

That is when Saudi stepped up and paid for this new sustainability report that is measured in 185 countries. It gives us an idea of the emissions of our sector, which are 8.1%. That is the contribution unfortunately for travel and tourism in terms of greenhouse emissions of CO2.

There is also going to be also a new report in terms of social impact and how many women there are in the sector and what is the percentage of youth in our sector. What is nice is that this is a good starting point for 185 countries. Saudi is committed not only to sustainability in the country, but also to sustainability globally. That is why this report was so important for us to invest in and to have it available for everyone as a starting point.

How green is Saudi Arabia’s tourism sector, and why it will possibly set the standards for the industry over the next decade?

The challenge that we face in tourism is divided in two. First, the new projects should start with sustainability in mind, and with net zero emissions, what we call a zero start. And then how do we make sure that the infrastructure and destinations that are already working and are developed move to net zero? You do this in two paths, the new one and the old one, and both must be sustainable.

In the case of the Kingdom, the new one is what we call the giga projects. Every single giga project has been planned to be sustainable. This is a priority that His Royal Highness has established for the country; every single thing that we build needs to be sustainable. That is why you will hear from the Red Sea project that they are talking not only about protecting the coral reefs – we have the world’s third largest coral reefs after Australia and Mexico – but we are looking at what happened in those two countries, and not only how we protect the coral reef, but how we regenerate new coral reefs. The Red Sea project is going to be sustainable from day one.

Neom is the first city in the world that has been planned with the citizens in the center. How the concept was created is sustainable from day one. All these giga projects, Quiddiya, Diriyah, Neom, the Red Sea, or AlUla, are sustainable from day one. That is very impressive. This is the mandate from His Royal Highness, it is about Vision 2030, it is part of what we call the Saudi Green Initiative, and we have a green agenda.

For the new projects, we start with friendly climate initiatives and with net zero. Now, when we look at the ones that already exist, we have another strategy: how do we reduce emissions in terms of transport? How do we reduce emissions in terms of facilities? How do we reduce food waste? How do we reduce plastic? For that, the Saudi Green Initiative is leading the effort with all the ministries, and every ministry is responsible for its contribution and strategy. At the Ministry of Tourism, we are contributing, learning from what is happening around the world, with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs), to help them and to define the strategy for the Kingdom. It is in two ends and both are very important.

Saudi is hosting major events, because the priority of the Kingdom is to do things right, but also to share with the world so that we have more Saudi in the world and more world in Saudi, in a way. The fact that we hosted World Tourism Day was a great opportunity, not only to invite Ministers of Tourism from elsewhere, but we also invited more than 60 CEOs – although 90 came – to interact with the private sector because that collaboration is key.

Every week, an event is held, allowing Saudi to share knowledge, investments, and to talk to the world. We will host Expo 2030 and that is an opportunity for us to showcase what the Kingdom is doing and how this transformation can help the world.

After the opening of a regional office in Saudi Arabia by the UNWTO, the celebration of international events and meetings, the development of incredible and far-sight tourism projects, billions of dollars of investments, the easing of visa requirements, the development of domestic and international transports, and, not least, a decided investment in tourism and hospitality education, Saudi Arabia is emerging as the top destination for tourism. What are the plans and expected results for the next 10 years?

This country has the potential to become a top-five tourism destination in the world. The business world, the business community, has a specific way of executing: quarterly reviews, key performance indicators (KPIs), and business plans. His Royal Highness is involved in the quarterly reviews. A country needs to have the vision, the leadership to execute, and the resources. We have all three of them: we have Vision 2030, we have the right leadership to execute, and we have the resources. We have a long-term view, but also a short-term view. Usually, some governments think very short-term because of the votes, and short-term wins. Here we have both.

Saudi Arabia is going to be a leading tourist destination because it has everything: the assets, the history, and the culture. You have AlUla for instance, with a culture that is very similar to Petra, but the difference is that here they have 121 tombs; it is very impressive. Also, the community engagement is very nice, because you go there, the tour operators and the tour guides are locals, the people working in the hotels are locals, and they are very proud of their culture and their history.

This means you are very immersed in a destination that is unique and beautiful. If you go to the Red Sea, you will find the same. At Diriyah, our first state and now a UNESCO heritage site, they have been able to show how it used to be 300 years ago, when Saudi was created.

When you see all these projects, how they are being executed, and in such a professional way, with very clear execution plans, the sky is the limit. Everything they say, they do. That is one of the reasons why I decided to come here and be part of this transformation because it is not only declarations and good wishes, but the Kingdom is dedicated to executing, and the people are so engaged. They are so passionate about their leader and about the transformation, and everyone wants to be part of this. Hospitality is part of their DNA. Coming from Mexico, we are very proud of our roots, our beginning, our history, and our culture. But also, we ae very proud of our hospitality, and here it is very similar. People are very welcoming and very nice.

When you combine that with training, it is a very powerful formula. That is why the ministry announced a Global Academy. We are going to have a Global Academy here to train people. It is going to be open to foreigners, but a lot are going to be locals because we need to invest in talent. That is very impressive as is the importance they are giving to women, to the development of talent. This is exactly what I am doing here too, transferring my knowledge to Saudis, coaching and mentoring women like Princess Haifa, who one day, hopefully, could be a minister. She is one of the stars we have here. But men too, I am trying to coach them and help them so they can develop faster.

Would you like to leave a final message for the readers of USA Today?

 I can be anywhere in the world. I am Mexican and my kids are Mexican Americans. I had the chance to live in Mexico, in the US, in the UK, and Saudi. I am here by choice because of what is happening in this country, this transformation that is going to help the country and is going to help the entire world.

I invite your readers to come and see it. Sometimes we draw conclusions with the information that we believe is the right one. Sometimes, it is better to come and see it yourself and try to talk to someone who lives here. Try to support this transformation because if we do it, at the end of the day, there is going to be a better benefit for the rest of the world. I totally believe that!