Cairo: Over 45,000 folks have benefitted from an leisure programme launched in Saudi Arabia greater than a yr in the past, based on a Saudi official, as the dominion’s leisure trade is prospering.

“This figure highlights the size of high demand for the entertainment on the part of the private and government sectors and from young people who see in entertainment a big industry,” head of the Saudi state General Entertainment Authority (GEA) Turki Al Alsheikh added.

He made the remarks in a taped handle to a ceremony held within the Saudi capital Riyadh to mark the commencement of the primary batch within the GEA abroad scholarship programme “Entertainment Fellowship”, a department of the “Happiness Makers” Initiative launched in September 2021.

Fifty-six trainees graduated within the first batch. Alsheikh mentioned that the “Happiness Makers” Initiative considerably contributes to rising the numbers of Saudis working within the “promising” leisure sector.

The “Entertainment Fellowship” was launched in partnership with the US-based University of Central Florida and the Event Academy in Britain.

The “Happiness Makers” Initiative is designed to coach and allow younger Saudis to do specialised jobs within the leisure trade.

The effort envisages qualifying a minimum of 100,000 younger Saudi women and men to work within the leisure sector within the kingdom by way of numerous coaching programs to realize abilities in crowd administration and dealing with leisure centres. In latest years, Saudi Arabia has sought to spice up its leisure trade, staging a string of concert events, cinema, theatrical exhibits and competitions which have drawn giant audiences from inside and out of doors the dominion.

In May 2016, the dominion created the GEA, a state company that has since sponsored a slew of stellar concert events, stage exhibits and festivals. In April 2018, Saudi Arabia reopened cinemas for the primary time in practically 4 a long time.

As many as 120 million folks have attended leisure occasions staged in Saudi Arabia since 2019, Al Alsheikh has mentioned, as the dominion is in search of to diversify its oil-reliant financial system.