Saudi Tourism Careers: Jamaica’s Blueprint for Vision 2030
Saudi Arabia’s drive to create One Million Tourism Careers is about more than filling jobs. Jamaica Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett says Vision 2030 can create a lasting workforce legacy by turning tourism jobs into careers built on professional training, advancement, worker protection, entrepreneurship and opportunity for a new generation.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — As Saudi Arabia races toward one of the most ambitious tourism transformations in modern history, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Hon. Edmund Bartlett, has offered the Kingdom a message that goes beyond airports, hotels and billion-dollar developments: the real legacy of Vision 2030 will be its people.
Speaking during the “Talent & Leadership Panel: One Million Tourism Careers – Delivering Saudi Arabia’s Tourism Vision Beyond 2030” at WTM Spotlight Riyadh, Bartlett argued that Saudi Arabia’s enormous investment in tourism infrastructure must be matched by an equally ambitious investment in human capital.
“The strongest destinations are not built on concrete alone,” Bartlett said. “They are built on careers. On people. On dignity.”
The message comes at a pivotal point in Saudi Arabia’s tourism journey.
Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre – GTRCMC – Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre – GTRCMC
Creating one million new tourism jobs has been a central ambition of the Kingdom’s National Tourism Strategy and Vision 2030. Earlier Saudi government statements linked that employment drive to tourism contributing 10% of GDP by 2030. More recent Vision 2030 material projects the sector generating 1.6 million jobs, while the Kingdom has raised its tourism target to 150 million domestic and international visitors annually by 2030.
Saudi Arabia is already well along that road. Ministry of Tourism figures released in 2026 show tourism employment reached approximately 1.03 million jobs in 2025. Saudi women have become an increasingly important part of that workforce, accounting for around 47% of Saudi employees in tourism-related activities, up from just 5% at the end of 2018.
For Bartlett, however, the challenge is not simply reaching a numerical employment target. It is transforming jobs into professions that can support Saudi tourism for decades.
Read the Saudi Vision 2030 transformation report.
Describing the One Million Careers ambition as “a covenant with a generation,” the Jamaican minister positioned his Caribbean nation as a potential partner for Saudi Arabia in developing a sustainable tourism workforce.
“Guests do not remember the marble in the lobby,” Bartlett told the Riyadh audience. “They remember the young Saudi who welcomed them with pride and professionalism.”
From tourism jobs to tourism careers
Jamaica brings an interesting perspective to the Saudi discussion. Tourism has long been one of the Caribbean country’s most important economic sectors, forcing it to address questions Saudi Arabia is now confronting on a dramatically larger scale: How do workers acquire internationally recognized skills? How can entry-level employees move into management? And how can tourism workers build long-term financial security?
Bartlett highlighted Jamaica’s experience through the HEART/NSTA Trust, the Jamaica Center of Tourism Innovation, and the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Center (GTRCMC).
Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre – GTRCMC – Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre – GTRCMC
He urged Saudi Arabia to build clearly defined career pathways that can take young Saudis from entry-level tourism positions into supervisory roles, senior management and ultimately entrepreneurship and ownership.
“If you want One Million Careers to last beyond 2030, young Saudis must see a forty-year future in this sector — with training, with promotion, with ownership,” Bartlett said. “That is how you build a national workforce. Not just fill positions.”
Saudi Arabia has already invested heavily in tourism training. Ministry data showed that nearly 500,000 Saudis had been prepared for tourism employment through training initiatives since 2019, while partnerships with educational institutions and private-sector employers are increasingly focused on developing Saudi talent for hospitality and tourism.
Jamaica brings worker protection into the conversation
Bartlett added another dimension that is sometimes overlooked in the rush to create tourism employment: what happens to workers when tourism is disrupted.
Jamaica established a dedicated Tourism Workers’ Pension Scheme, designed to provide greater long-term security to workers in a sector traditionally characterized by seasonal and sometimes informal employment. The country’s tourism sector has also gained experience in worker support, retraining and recovery following COVID-19 and other crises.
“A destination is only as resilient as its people,” Bartlett said. “Worker protection is not a cost. It is the insurance policy for your One Million Careers.”
He proposed more formal Jamaica–Saudi Arabia cooperation, including partnerships between the GTRCMC and Saudi tourism training institutions and exchange programmes centered on workforce development, resilience and professional certification.
“Our model is simple, and it scales: develop the workforce, professionalize the skills, create the career ladder, protect the worker,” Bartlett said.
His intervention fits the broader focus of the inaugural WTM Spotlight Riyadh, held September 8–10 at the Riyadh Front Exhibition & Conference Center. The event brought together Saudi and international tourism leaders as the Kingdom moves from rapid tourism expansion toward the longer-term challenge of sustaining its visitor economy.
For Saudi Arabia, the numbers are already extraordinary. But Bartlett suggested the Kingdom’s ultimate measure of success may be less about how many hotels it builds than how many lives tourism transforms.
“Ten years from now, the world will not just talk about Saudi’s mega-projects,” he predicted. “They will talk about Saudi’s One Million Careers — the most skilled, most protected, most professional tourism workforce on the planet.”