Saudi Tourism Authority Participates in Arabian Travel Market Exhibition in Dubai

Saudi Tourism Authority Participates in Arabian Travel Market Exhibition in Dubai
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Saudi Tourism Authority Participates in Arabian Travel Market Exhibition in Dubai

Saudi Tourism Authority Participates in Arabian Travel Market Exhibition in Dubai

Saudi Arabia, represented by the Tourism Authority, is participating in the 30th edition of the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai, which will run until May 4, aiming to boost the Kingdom's position on the global tourism map and feature its destinations, experiences, products, and investment opportunities.

The Kingdom's pavilion hosts the largest Saudi delegation ever, with 67 partners of the Saudi tourism sector, in addition to more than 500 prime tourism packages and itineraries that are ready for immediate reservations, according to SPA.

The Kingdom's participation in the global tourism forum integrates with its efforts to become an easier and more entertaining travel destination, with increasing demand for bookings along the Red Sea coast and the southern highlands.

Saudi Arabia offers visitors various types of visas, such as the Umrah visa, transit visa, and family visit visa, in addition to making an electronic visa available to residents of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries without requiring specific professions. The on-arrival visa was also made available to citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom, and European Union countries, as well as holders of US, UK and Schengen visas.

Nusuk, the unified national platform for visitors to Makkah and Madinah destinations, is participating in the Saudi pavilion at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai with more than 20 partners representing the major Umrah companies, organizing trips, and providing services to the Umrah performers.

At the Arabian Travel Market, CEO and board member of the Saudi Tourism Authority Fahd Hamidaddin stated that Saudi Arabia today is the top investor globally in tourism and an ideal destination for major international tourism investors. He added that the number of visitors to the Kingdom who came for tourism, Umrah, and business purposes in the first quarter of this year exceeded what was achieved in the same period last year.

Saudi tourism has recorded an accelerated growth that reached 121% compared to the growth rates of international tourism in the pre-pandemic period, as the Kingdom achieved 93.5 million visits in 2022.

Today, the Kingdom is the largest investor in tourism in the world, by allocating more than $550 billion to major projects and new destinations to be inaugurated by 2030.



Trump Vexes New Zealanders by Claiming One of Their Proudest Historical Moments for America 

British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton, left, and Dr. F.D. Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK, May 2, 1932. (AP)
British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton, left, and Dr. F.D. Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK, May 2, 1932. (AP)
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Trump Vexes New Zealanders by Claiming One of Their Proudest Historical Moments for America 

British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton, left, and Dr. F.D. Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK, May 2, 1932. (AP)
British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton, left, and Dr. F.D. Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, UK, May 2, 1932. (AP)

Among other false and misleading claims in US President Donald Trump's inauguration addresses on Tuesday, his declaration that Americans “split the atom” prompted vexed social media posts by New Zealanders, who said the achievement belonged to a pioneering scientist revered in his homeland.

Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of nuclear physics, is regarded by many as the first to knowingly split the atom by artificially inducing a nuclear reaction in 1917 while he worked at a university in Manchester in the United Kingdom.

The achievement is also credited to English scientist John Douglas Cockroft and Ireland's Ernest Walton, researchers in 1932 at a British laboratory developed by Rutherford. It is not attributed to Americans.

Trump’s account of US greatness in one of Monday's inauguration addresses included a claim that Americans “crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.”

New Zealand politician Nick Smith, the mayor of Nelson, where Rutherford was born and educated, said he was “a bit surprised” by the claim.

“Rutherford’s groundbreaking research on radio communication, radioactivity, the structure of the atom and ultrasound technology were done at Cambridge and Manchester Universities in the UK and McGill University in Montreal Canada,” Smith wrote on Facebook.

Smith said he would invite the next US ambassador to New Zealand to visit Rutherford’s birthplace memorial “so we can keep the historic record on who split the atom first accurate.”

A website for the US Department of Energy's Office of History and Heritage Resources credits Cockroft and Walton with the milestone, although it describes Rutherford's earlier achievements in mapping the structure of the atom, postulating a central nucleus and identifying the proton.

Trump's remarks provoked a flurry of online posts by New Zealanders about Rutherford, whose work is studied by New Zealand schoolchildren and whose name appears on buildings, streets and institutions. His portrait features on the 100-dollar banknote.

“Okay, I’ve gotta call time. Trump just claimed America split the atom,” Ben Uffindell, editor of the satirical New Zealand news website The Civilian, wrote on X. “That’s THE ONE THING WE DID.”