S Arabia starts offering 60-day tourist visas

---

DUBAI, June 9 (PTI): Saudi Arabia has started issuing group visas, through licenced tour operators, to foreign nationals intending to visit the Kingdom.
Tourist visas could be obatined for a maximum period of 60 days. Generally visas are issued in accordance with the tour programne, Ahmed Al-Eissa, director general for licences and quality at the supreme commission for tourism (SCT), said.
The SCT has decided to issue tourist visas, through licensed tour operators, as part of its efforts to attract 1.5 million tourists a year by 2020, excluding the millions who come on Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages.
Giving details of the visa conditions, a SCT official said, tourists should come in groups of not less than five members. The minimum age for women to get visas is 30 if they are not travelling with their close relatives.
The Kingdom has also started receiving tourists coming by ships.
"Tourist ships intending to visit the Kingdom must coordinate with organisations licensed by the commission," Eissa told the Arab News.
Presently there are 18 licenced tour operators bringing foreigners on tourist visas to the country.