Exploring the GCC will become a whole lot simpler thanks to a unified Gulf tourist visa.

Set to mimic Europe’s Schengen visa that sees travellers granted a single pass to visit the European Union, the GCC common tourism visa will enable visitors to travel across all six Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The news comes after the proposal was ratified at the 40th meeting of GCC interior ministers in Oman, with the targeted rollout of the new single unified tourist system being expected to be between 2024 and 2025, subject to the readiness of each GCC country's internal systems.

“The unified Gulf tourist visa is a project that will contribute to facilitating and streamlining the movement of residents and tourists between the six GCC countries and will, undoubtedly, have a positive [impact] on the economic and tourist sectors,” said GCC Secretary General Jassim Al Budaiwi.

The prospect of the new visa was revealed back in September by the UAE’s Minister of Economy Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri to the Oman Daily Observer.

“I think that is something which has been on the table. It’s been complementing all the GCC strategies on tourism,” Al Marri said. “Hopefully, we are going to see something around a pan-GCC visa which will allow easier mobility of people within the GCC. A resident of Saudi, for instance, can enter the UAE and vice versa. I think that’s where we see the future of GCC tourism.”

The Minister also announced in the interview that The Emirates Tourism Council has formulated a tourist route within the UAE that interconnects the seven emirates. The new route will help tourists access some of the 399 designated tourist sites located within the country including the famed Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi and Dubai’s Museum of The Future and lesser known sights of Ajman’s Al Zorah Natural Reserve and Sharjah’s Maleha.

We’ll keep you updated as more news filters in!