• THE ENGINE: SMART PAYMENTS
Built with secure by-design principles: The invisible infrastructure beneath Saudi Arabia's travel
Smarter payments are helping make travel more seamless and secure
Saudi Arabia’s travel ambitions are creating more connections, more transactions and new opportunities. Pinaaz Kulkarn i, Head of Visa Commercial Solutions, CEMEA , explains why secure payments will be fundamental to sustaining that growth.
H ow can Saudi Arabia turn travel growth into lasting value, without allowing fraud and friction to scale with it? For the businesses that assemble, sell and settle that travel, the answer could lie in making every connection more secure and trusted. Last year the kingdom hosted 123 million tourists, generating SAR304 billion (US$81 billion) in spending. The Vision 2030 target has since risen to 150 million visitors,
transport, attractions, ground handlers and destination services. Electronic payments accounted for 85% of retail transactions in 2025. It means more activity across digital and cross- border environments where fraudsters can use stolen credentials, account takeover and enumeration fraud. Visa's analysis of cross-border airline purchases shows card-not-present accounting for 99% of fraud in the sector. Visa research showed that cards issued across CEMEA carried lower fraud
models that help support more than 8,000 banks today. Through Visa Risk Manager with Visa Advanced Authorisation, issuers can apply that intelligence across Visa and non-Visa portfolios. For airlines and travel platforms, Visa combines network intelligence with payment controls, real- time fraud decisioning, tokenisation and EMV 3-D Secure authentication, targeting higher-risk activity without treating every customer as a threat. Trust must also extend behind the booking. Between travel businesses, virtual cards use single-use credentials to reduce exposure while supporting cross- border settlement. Because each is issued against a specific booking, it carries its own reference, supporting finance teams with supplier-level control, automatic reconciliation and real-time visibility of cash. Containing fraud is where it starts. The operational gain takes it further. Saudi Arabia's future role is bigger than that of a destination or source market. It can help set the standard for how a connected, AI-enabled travel economy grows. Strong risk management will play a central role, protecting consumers, strengthening the businesses that serve them and helping the industry realise the full potential of Vision 2030.
70 million of them from abroad. Religious tourism shows it most clearly: international Umrah arrivals rose 22.5% this season, passing 1.27 million. Growth of this shape means travellers from an increasingly diverse range of markets, each bringing
rate than North America, Latin America and Caribbean, and Asia Pacific for Q1 2025 at 4.9 basis points against 20 in North America and 23.7 in Latin America. The cost does not stop at the fraud itself. Fraudulent bookings
Pinaaz Kulkarni
different payment preferences, behaviours and risk profiles. At the same time, Saudi travellers, consumers and business alike, are spending in more destinations worldwide. The value of the Saudi traveller is not a single spend figure. It moves through two connected payment journeys: the traveller paying for a trip, and businesses paying one another to deliver it. That second journey now spans hotels, airlines,
and the disputes behind them return to agents as debit memos, absorbing working capital and back-office time in a business running on thin commissions. Helping protect payments is where Visa's work begins. As Saudi Arabia invests across the AI value chain, payments put that ambition to work. Visa Advanced Authorisation can evaluate up to 400 attributes per transaction in real- time, drawing on AI and machine-learning
*Disclaimer: This material is provided for informational purposes only, is “AS IS,” and should not be relied upon for legal, regulatory, financial, or other advice. Features, functionality, and availability are subject to issuer, acquirer, and market conditions and may vary by geography; results will differ based on implementation and configuration. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and are subject to risks and uncertainties. All non-Visa trademarks (including EMV) are the property of their respective owners. Sources: Saudi Ministry of Tourism, The Saudi Ministry of Hajj & Umrah, Visa
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