The Department of Tourism and Hotel Management at the College of Business Administration, Umm Al-Qura University (UQU), organized a celebration of the World Tourism Day on Thursday, 27^th September 2018 in Makkah Mall.  

The event was held in the presence of Prof. Abdullah Bafil (UQU President), Prof. Ihsan Al-Moataz (Dean of the BA College), Dr. Ali Al-Shaery (Dean of the Consulting Research and Studies Institute), as well as a group of guests of honor, interested persons, academics and tourism industrialists in the Kingdom.  

The event started with a Quranic recitation followed by the speech of Dr. Ali Al-Qassem, Head of the Department of Tourism, in which he explained that such occasion was celebrated annually with a new topic. He added that the topic of this year was “Digital Tourism and the Method to Use Applications in Touristic Aspects.” He pointed out that paying attention to tourism became a significant aspect to the Kingdom. In addition, he confirmed that the Saudi Vision 2030 stressed the significance of development in the tourism and entertainment sector. This aimed to diversify the Kingdom’s sources of income, encourage the private sector to invest, and study plans to develop many sites in the domains of tourism and heritage according to the highest international standards.

In the same context, Dr. Al-Qassem added that it was a must to keep up with the technological and digital development in line with the modern updates and the transformation of information in all walks of life, most importantly in tourism and entertainment. Moreover, he pointed at a large number of Saudi and Arab electronic applications that facilitated the choice of tourist destinations at the best prices and services.

Afterwards, Prof. Bafil honored the participants in, and organizers of, the event. Then, the accompanying events succeeded each other. In other words, they included honoring the winners in the competitions of the most beautiful picture of a tourist attraction in the Kingdom, and the best tweet about a village, city or province. Besides, the winners in the competition of “How to Be an Ambassador to Your Homeland on the 88^th Saudi National Day” were honored. Those who participated and interacted in the event were also given souvenirs.