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The tourism sector in Saudi Arabia has been identified as one of the priority sectors in Saudi’s Vision 2030. This vision is focused on diversifying the economy, contributing to economic growth (of more than 10 per cent), and creating one million jobs by 2030. The Saudi tourism industry has recently witnessed a spectacular expansion in recent years due to the introduction of clear and specific policies and institutional structures. However, for effective tourism management strategy and planning, appropriate policy decisions and infrastructure development, there needs to be a greater understanding of what factors influence international tourism demand. Motivated by this need, this study has three main objectives: to identify the impact of the main determinants (both economic and selected non-economic factors) of inbound tourism demand; to forecast inbound tourism demand; and to assess and project the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international tourist arrivals to Saudi Arabia. To address gaps in the body of knowledge, this study introduces country-specific factors into tourism demand models, including human rights issues, destination prosperity, students studying abroad, and expatriate workers. This study also fills gaps in existing knowledge by developing holistic models focused on an analysis of specific tourism market segments: religious, business, and visiting friends and relatives (VFR). To obtain robust results, this study used both static and dynamic panel estimators to measure the effects of both economic factors and selected non-economic factors on tourist flows to Saudi Arabia, from 2000 to 2019. The latest econometric models …