THE ENGINE: DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION •
the kingdom as a world-class destination,” Ahussain notes. This extends beyond customer experience to long-term capability building. “Almosafer is helping build Saudi Arabia’s future travel workforce, developing local engineers, product leaders, tourism specialists, tour guides, data scientists, etc., who will be able to operate and scale the kingdom’s tourism economy for decades to come.” AI already underpins much of that ambition. “At Almosafer, AI is not a future concept, but an operational reality,” stresses Ahussain. From anticipating travellers' desires to crafting experiences and delivering proactive support, AI is embedded across booking engines and customer service platforms. With “more than 50 live solutions and more than 100 POCs,” the company has “already moved beyond basic automation”. A major step is Almosafer’s launch on ChatGPT, making it the first application from Saudi Arabia to offer travel services through OpenAI’s global AI interface. This puts Almosafer at the forefront of conversational commerce, enabling travellers to plan trips through natural dialogue in Arabic or English. Through the Almosafer App within ChatGPT, users can access an inventory of more than 1.5 million hotels, search for properties, receive personalised recommendations and build multi-city itineraries. The integration is designed to make travel planning more intuitive, with AI able to interpret specific needs such as family-friendly stays, landmark proximity or destination preferences without requiring users to navigate traditional menus. This focus on relevance is now being embedded more deeply within Almosafer’s own platforms. Its new AI-powered conversational commerce feature enables users to filter their ideal stay using natural- language prompts, moving beyond traditional search criteria to requests shaped around personal needs, trip context and real-time intent. By combining proprietary data with live insights, Almosafer’s native AI can curate more precise recommendations, helping travellers move faster from inspiration to decision. The impact is already measurable; models that summarise reviews and tag content have delivered “conversion rates of 20%”. The next step is a travel platform that “understands context, culture and intent well enough to reduce friction at every stage“.
“Almosafer’s path is defined by a deep, singular commitment to the future of travel and tourism in Saudi Arabia”
must build at the speed of the future,” Ahussain explains. Today, “more than 65% of our production code is co-authored by AI, and all of our digital and engineering teams utilise AI for QA automation and code reviews”, enabling the company to deploy updates more than 100 times per day. This agility empowers Almosafer to continuously reimagine destination discovery, from pre- booking inspiration to in-destination and post-trip engagement. These capabilities are amplified by Almosafer’s multi-business structure, which spans consumer travel, corporate travel management, destination management, activities, and hajj and umrah services. Rather than operating in silos, the group functions as “a strategically integrated ecosystem”, built on “a unified digital and state-of-the-art micro-services architecture across all five of our core businesses”. Data flows between segments, with consumer insights cross-referenced against corporate travel demands, while Discover Saudi adds granular local knowledge and Mawasim contributes deep cultural and spiritual expertise. The scale of this operation is significant: “more than 200 million lines of code and a microservices architecture that processes on an average 2 billion requests per month.” By owning its proprietary tech stack, Almosafer maintains “full control over the user experience,” reinforcing its position as “a best-in-class partner for major global entities, commercial partners, and government bodies”. Technological sovereignty ensures the company can synchronise diverse travel needs through “a single, intelligent data core”, delivering the high-tech, high-touch journeys required for long-term competitiveness. Serving the next generation of travellers is equally central to Almosafer’s thinking. “The future traveller isn't just booking a flight and hotel but seeking to curate a chapter of their life,” says Ahussain. Experiences are expected to be immersive, personalised and meaningful, whether through multi- generational journeys, wellness-focused retreats or culturally rich itineraries. Almosafer is responding by treating travel as a lifestyle driver, integrating relevant products into its offerings. This also means reframing perceptions of what the kingdom
offers, connecting travellers to destinations such as AlUla, Tabuk and Abha, and working with destination management offices and giga-projects to mould a tourism ecosystem that “celebrates innovation”. VISITOR-CENTRIC MASS TRAVEL Almosafer is also investing heavily in digital integration to support the kingdom’s international reach. Collaboration with technology partners such as Amadeus, AWS and Google underpins a “robust, interconnected platform that unifies booking and customer service across all segments”. Strategically, the company continues to diversify its tourism portfolio while remaining anchored in authenticity. “While religious travel through Mawasim remains a core pillar, we are packaging unique leisure, adventure, and cultural experiences through Discover Saudi and Almosafer Activities,” explains Ahussain. Nowhere is this balance between scale and sensitivity more critical than in Hajj and Umrah travel. By 2040, Ahussain believes religious travel will remain “one of the world’s most significant mass movements”, but transformed through “high-capacity digital integration”. Through its partnership with the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah and the Nusuk Hajj platform, Almosafer is already supporting millions of pilgrims, providing a unified gateway to more than 450 carriers across 126 countries. The vision is for “mass travel” to become synonymous with “efficient travel,” supported by AI-driven planning, digital identity verification and real-time navigation within holy sites, while remaining unequivocally visitor-centric. Almosafer’s growth path is “defined by a deep, singular commitment to the future of Saudi Arabia”, Ahussain says, “building the digital backbone for the kingdom’s next wave of giga-projects and entertainment hubs, supported by a vision of hyper-local connectivity and invisible travel”. Investment in people underpins it all, as Almosafer evolves into “a centre of excellence for the next generation of Saudi travel professionals”, ensuring the kingdom’s tourism future is not only world-class, but locally developed.
FUTURE READINESS That future-readiness is mirrored internally. “We believe that to lead the future, we
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