Travel agents and tour operators excited about Schengen-style GCC tourist visa

New visa set to debut in December 2024; tour operators planning itineraries for travellers

NT Bureau
Doha

The new Schengen-style GCC visa set to debut in December 2024 will allow seamless travel across Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, and the UAE, boosting tourism, and is keenly awaited by travel and tour agents in the region, a leading travel and tourism website has said.

The eagerly awaited tourist visa is expected to enhance tourism and simplify regional exploration.
“This development follows the completion of statutory compliance and has received unanimous approval from all GCC states, bringing it closer to reality. The announcement was made during the 40th GCC ministers’ meeting in Oman,” Travel and Tour World (TTW) said in a report.

Travel agents and tour operators in the GCC are already planning comprehensive itineraries that leverage the simplified single visa, offering tours across all the GCC states. This proactive approach aims to maximize the benefits of the new visa for travelers and stimulate regional tourism.

“This new visa initiative is eagerly awaited. To celebrate, I embarked on a coastal adventure across all six GCC countries, starting from Kuwait and concluding in Saudi Arabia,” TTW Founder and CEO, Anup Kumar Keshan, said.

“We foresee a substantial surge in tourism across all six Gulf nations in the coming years. The introduction of the Schengen Visa in 1995 for European Union countries brought about a remarkable increase in tourism, and we expect a similar impact with this new single visa. It will streamline the planning process for tour operators and travel agents, and even business travelers are likely to make more frequent trips, benefiting from the simplified travel procedures,” he added.

By removing the need for separate visas for each country, more people can travel freely, boosting regional tourism and making cross-border trips more convenient.