Formula E was a pilot project for the launch of Saudi tourist visa: official

The visa service for Saudia Ad Diriyah E Prix could well have marked the formal launch of the tourist visa service by Saudi Arabia, Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal Al-Saud, vice chairman of the General Sports Authority said.

“Hopefully we will learn from this and see what we need to do for the future, but I can tell you from now that there is a lot of demand from other entities that are doing events in the Kingdom to use this platform, because it was really, really good. We are very happy with the process and the development of the portal,” the Center for International Communication quoted the Prince as saying.

The recently concluded Saudia Ad Diriyah E Prix saw around 1,000 tourists of 80 nationalities from countries like the United States, Europe, Russia, Central and South America, Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia descend on Riyadh to watch Formula E.

This is the first time Saudi Arabia launched the visa service for visitors outside the scope of religious tourism through a portal named ‘Sharek’.

"This process was limited to the Formula E. Usually if you apply for a visa it will take some time to get it and you will have to do it through the embassy. We did it [the e-visa] hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We went from a very complicated process to a very simple one,” Prince Abdulaziz said.

“The feedback we are getting is that it takes you a minute to get a visa. So far around 1,000 visitors used the service; they bought the tickets, applied for their visas and now they are here,” he further said.

“This is the first time we did such a thing in our country. And we chose Formula E because it is a global event with big reach around the world and has international parties involved in it,” he added.