Seyaha سياحة
Seyaha's Memo
Jan to Apr 2026 · Issue No. 05
$834K
⃁ 3.1M
GBV · YTD 2026
57× YoY
2.5K Bookings · YTD 2026
25× YoY
1M Platform Visitors
23× YoY
800+ Saudi Suppliers in Network
Letter from Seyaha · May 2026

Profitable.
Compounding.
Resilient.

Three themes shaped the first 4 months of 2026 inside Seyaha.
1. The company is profitable.
2. The enterprise desk landed marquee work.
3. A quarter that included Ramadan, Eid, and a turbulent regional backdrop produced the strongest 4-month run in the company's history.

Seyaha is the operating system for Saudi Arabia's tours, experiences, and transfers market. We are a Saudi travel-tech startup headquartered in Riyadh. We aggregate the Kingdom's fragmented offline supply (tours, guides, venues, camps, farms, museums, parks), digitizes it into machine-readable, bookable inventory, and distributes it across multiple channels.

I / The Marketplace

Bookings, basket, and the supply chain we feed.

Year-on-year, every input moved in the right direction at the right magnitude.

↑ 25× YoY 2,590 Bookings
Jan-Apr 2026
↑ 23× YoY 1M Platform Visitors
Jan-Apr 2026
↑ 93% YoY $323 Average Basket Value
Apr 2026 monthly 30% Net Take Rate

5 Quarters of Compounding

Quarterly · Q1 2025 to Q1 2026
Quarterly Bookings Q1 2026: 1,850 · More than all of 2025 combined
1,850 Q1 2025 Q2 2025 Q3 2025 Q4 2025 Q1 2026
Quarterly Gross Booking Value (USD) Q1 2026: $595K · 1.7× all of 2025 combined
$595K Q1 2025 Q2 2025 Q3 2025 Q4 2025 Q1 2026
Quarterly Payouts to Local Suppliers (USD) Q1 2026: $454K · More than all of 2025 combined
$454K Q1 2025 Q2 2025 Q3 2025 Q4 2025 Q1 2026

Demand depth grew faster than basket size. Basket size still nearly doubled. The compounding underneath those two facts is what produced April's profitability.

Bookings rose from a base of around one hundred in the same period last year to 2,590 in the 4-months just closed. Platform traffic climbed from 44K sessions to over a million, with the bulk of that arriving as intent rather than awareness scrolling.
The average customer is now spending nearly 2x what they did a year ago, a function of the package strategy: a transfer attached to a ticket, a meal attached to a tour, a stay attached to an experience. The blended take rate in April closed at 30%

Marketing Efficiency We are acquiring customers cheaper and earning more from each Riyal of spend.
↑4×+
Return on Ad Spend
Period avg, YoY
↓82%
Customer Acquisition Cost
Period avg, YoY
The Local Supply Economy

For every booking that closes on Seyaha, money moves into the Saudi Tourism supply chain.

$622K / ⃁ 2.3M
Paid to local Suppliers
Jan-Apr 2026
$1M / ⃁ 3.75M
Cumulative Payouts
16-Month Total
800+
Tour Operators, Transfer Companies, Camps, Catering, and Tour Guides

Where the demand is coming from

Top 10 source markets · YTD 2026 · By revenue
01 Saudi Arabia Home Market 70.6%
02 Spain Europe 7.1%
03 United Kingdom Europe 4.7%
04 United States Americas 4.5%
05 United Arab Emirates GCC 2.9%
06 Kuwait GCC 2.8%
07 Malaysia Asia-Pacific 2.1%
08 Germany Europe 1.8%
09 Belgium Europe 1.8%
10 Qatar GCC 1.7%

Seyaha is an in-destination, post-arrival and domestic engine of 7/10 riyals, with the rest sourced pre-arrival from 4 European Tier-1 markets, 3 GCC neighbours, 1 North American market, and 1 Southeast Asian foothold.

II / The Enterprise Desk

Where the corporate and event calendar in Saudi Arabia runs through Seyaha.

Q1 was the quarter the B2B channel went from supplement to revenue line.

The B2B desk handles 3 buyers at once: corporate clients who need tours, transfers, and experiences for their visiting executives and clients; large events that need ground operations, transfers, and organized tours for hundreds of attendees; and Saudi institutions placing experiential programmes for their guests. Across the 9 months from August 2025 to April 2026, monthly enterprise revenue compounded roughly 14×. The pipeline carried into Q2 is the largest the desk has ever held.

Saudi welcome tradition at the Jadwa investor trip in Hail

Case StudyJadwa Investment · A 3-day, in-Kingdom hosting programme for 100+ guests across Hail's landmarks and cultural sites. Designed, contracted, and operated end-to-end by Seyaha.

Traditional Ardah sword dance performance Open-top vintage Land Cruiser convoy through Jubbah Hospitality service at the evening programme
The Jadwa Programme

100 guests, 3 days, every Hail landmark, operated as one programme.

Seyaha was selected by Jadwa Investment to design and run the on-ground experience for a multi-day, high-touch hosting brief covering Hail's heritage, landscapes, and contemporary attractions, with a parallel internal engagement track for Jadwa's senior team. End to end: itinerary design, supplier orchestration, transport, ground hospitality, evening programming, and executive logistics.

100+
Guests Hosted
3 days
Continuous Operation
1 owner
Single Operational Lead
VIP
Sourcing every element specifically to cater for VIP guests
Q1 2026 Enterprise & Venue Partners
Jadwa Investment
World Defense Show 2026
PIF Private Sector Forum
Six Flags Qiddiya City

The pattern is consistent across these engagements. Seyaha has been approached, and contracted as the operations layer for ground experience, transport, and curated tours, activities, and programming. None of these are one-off wins. Each opens a relationship with a buyer who hosts visiting delegations multiple times a year. That is what turns the B2B desk from a campaign into an annuity.

Our partnership with Qiddiya City, a PIF-owned anchor attraction, represents a significant collaboration for Seyaha. Beyond acting as a ticket reseller, Seyaha designed exclusive tours and activities, co-developed marketing strategies with the Six Flags team, and now operates the bundled stay-and-ticket packages for both inbound and domestic travelers. The creative materials included below were featured in the Saudi Tourism Authority's Kingdom-wide campaign, promoting the specific packages designed by Seyaha.

Seyaha Six Flags Qiddiya City package promotion under the Saudi Spirit campaign

Venue PartnershipSeyaha · Six Flags Qiddiya City package campaign · An ongoing collaboration with the Saudi Tourism Authority's "Visit Saudi" (روح السعودية) campaign, that was launched by the STA during the month of April

III / The Sovereign Layer

Working alongside the entities that shape Saudi tourism.

Aligned with the Kingdom's tourism agenda operationally, not just rhetorically.

Saudi Summer Program 2026 Workshop launch group photo with the Minister of Tourism

Strategic Partner · STASeyaha invited to the Saudi Summer Program 2026 workshop hosted by the Saudi Tourism Authority and chaired by H.E. the Minister of Tourism, joining the strategic partner cohort shaping the Kingdom's flagship summer season.

Royal Commission for Makkah City & Holy Sites

The qualification programme for Makkah's tour guides, designed and delivered with the Royal Commission.

In January 2026, Seyaha designed and ran the Makkah Tour Guide Enhanced Qualification and Training Programme under the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites, in alignment with the Saudi Tourism Authority. Of 350 applicants, 50 were qualified across eight working languages (Arabic, English, French, Turkish, Urdu, Indonesian, Japanese, and Spanish), making it one of the most selective and linguistically diverse tour-guide cohorts ever certified for the city.

350
Applicants Screened
50
Guides Qualified
14%
Acceptance Rate
10
Days of Workshops

The Hail Region Destination Management Office contracted Seyaha through Etimad, the Saudi government's procurement platform, to design and operate a multi-day familiarisation programme. 15 inbound travel companies were brought to Hail to meet local suppliers across every layer of the tourism stack: transport operators, desert camps, licensed guides, tour operators, and hospitality providers. Seyaha sourced the participating companies, designed and orchestrated the itinerary, and then executed the on-ground programme end to end. The brief opens a new regional supply layer for inbound buyers and a sustained working relationship with the Hail DMO.

Hail Region DMO · FAM Trip

15 inbound companies, 6 supplier categories, 1 new regional layer in the network.

Seyaha submited the winning proposal through Etimad procurement platform, and handled supplier sourcing, programme design, logistics, and on-ground execution for a multi-day familiarisation trip introducing 15 inbound travel companies to Hail's full tourism stack.

15
Inbound Travel Companies
6
Supplier Categories Convened
Etimad
Government Procurement Channel
Hail
New Region in the Network
Official Hail Region Development Authority announcement of the January 2026 familiarisation trip co-branded with Seyaha

Official AnnouncementHail Region Development Authority · FAM trip programme dated 18-20 January 2026 · Co-branded with Seyaha as the sole operating partner.

Beyond Makkah (RCMC) and Hail (HRDA), the period saw a sustained cadence of work with the Saudi Tourism Authority. Continuous alignment on direction, product design, and launch sequencing kept Seyaha embedded in the planning cycles ahead of the summer season. The relationships with Aseer Region Development Authority, The Strategic Office for AlBaha Region Development, and Madinah Development Authority programms continued to deepen.

Government & Destination-Management Partners
Saudi Tourism Authority
Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites
Hail Region Development Authority
Hail Region Development Authority
Almadinah / Namaa Almonawara
Namaa Tourism Accelerator
Monshaat
Saudi Ministry of Culture
IV / The Operating Layer

Distribution, concierge, and capital.

The infrastructure compounding underneath the channel wins.

01 / Distribution

1,000+ Saudi experiences, machine-readable, distributed to every surface a traveller plans on.

The Saudi Experiences API completed build in 2025 and is now in full production. It ships 1,000+ in-destination products (tours, attractions, museums, ticketed venues, transfers) to every major surface a traveller uses to plan and book. Endpoints include GetYourGuide, Viator, Expedia, Civitatis, Headout, the dynamic-packaging engines of TBO and HBX (HotelBeds Group), and Google Maps. Each product ships with structured content, real-time pricing, live availability, and full media assets.

For instance, a supplier onboarded with Seyaha in Riyadh can now have their tours, tickets, or services featured on dozens of channels simultaneously. Leveraging Seyaha's central content management system (CMS), any updates they make to descriptions, pricing, or availability will propagate instantly across all connected platforms, including global and local OTAs, Hotels, Airlines, and mobile apps.

Seyaha Saudi Experiences API distribution diagram showing connections from local tour operators through the Seyaha APIs layer to global OTAs

The Saudi Experiences APILocal tour operators upload once. Their products appear on every major global distribution surface, with structured content, live pricing, and real-time availability.

Distribution Channels & Partners
IHG Hotels & Resorts
Crowne Plaza
Holiday Inn
Novotel Hotels & Resorts
IHG Hotels & Resorts
Crowne Plaza
Holiday Inn
Novotel Hotels & Resorts
Vivian Park Hotels
Anala Hotels and Resorts
02 / Hotel Concierge

Seyaha's PMS-integrated hotel concierge, now live across the Kingdom and a growing list of global and local brands.

Seyaha's hotel concierge platform integrates directly with hotel property-management systems (Opera and equivalents) and presents tours, transfers, tickets, and activities to guests.

The model is commission-based. Hotels earn ancillary revenue stream with zero operational cost; Seyaha earns direct in-destination demand. The platform expanded through Q1 2026 across both global brands and Saudi-domestic chains.

Three deployment surfaces of the Seyaha hotel concierge: a lobby digital kiosk, an in-room QR code display, and a tablet screen for hotel staff

3 touchpoints · One PMS integrationBranded Landing Pages. In-room QR codes. Front-desk tablets. All three surfaces sell from the same underlying product catalogue, with bookings flowing to Seyaha for fulfilment.

03 / Payments & Capital

An in-house payments orchestration stack.And an unsolicited vote of confidence from Stripe.

Where most travel businesses outsource payments, Seyaha built it in-house: an orchestration and FX hedging layer that increases payment acceptance by intelligently routing each transaction to the most reliable gateway (based on issuer geography, currency, BIN, and historical decline rates), and compresses FX spreads by hedging the SAR, USD, EUR, and GBP corridors the business actually transacts in.

Stripe Capital unsolicitedly pre-qualified Seyaha for a $172k working-capital loan. The offer is algorithmic, based on Stripe's visibility into the portion of the transactions that flow through its pipes. This is a third-party read from a processor with no incentive to flatter.

Email screenshot from Stripe Capital pre-qualifying Seyaha for a $172,300 working capital loan based on transaction performance

Stripe Capital · Unsolicited Pre-qualificationThe figure of $172,300 is set by Stripe's algorithmic underwriting based on observed transaction volume, decline rates, refund patterns, and growth trajectory.

V / Resilience

A quarter with reasons to slow down.We did not.

Q1 2026 included Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr, a stretch during which much of the regional travel industry quietly trims forecasts and frames the period as "context, not performance." It also coincided with a turbulent geopolitical backdrop.

What the 4-months actually produced:
January GBV $170K,
February $217K,
March $207K,
April $239K.
Every month above $200K USD. Two of the four (March and April) landing inside Ramadan-affected weeks and the Eid holiday respectively. April closing as the first EBITDA-positive month in company history.

"Where we operate, every month is the month. Ramadan, soft inbound, summer heat, rescheduled events, or the regional situation are not reasons. We made March and April our two strongest months precisely because we quickly readapted our offerings."

Mostafa K. Attia, CEO
VI / The Position

What we are building. And what we will not chase.

Seyaha is a for-profit company. Capital deployed here funds supply, distribution, and operations: the 3 line items that produce the next dollar of margin. For 2026, our strategy remains focused on these essentials: deepening supply, widening distribution, and aggressively growing margins.

While we recognize the industry and media interest in agentic AI booking, AI tour guides, and glamorous consumer-facing travel apps, our decades of experience in global travel platforms lead us to believe these are not the primary margin drivers in the current market. Instead, we have positioned Seyaha as The MCP for Saudi Tours, Ticketing, and Experiences.

We have made our products 100% discoverable and bookable by LLMs and AI agents so others can build their solutions on top of our data and logistics infrastructure layer. Notably, nearly 7% of our current bookings originate from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

What we will be doing: deepening our supply pool, widening distribution across all traveler touchpoints, and aggressively growing our margins.

Co-founder · CEO
27 years in travel-tech. Built and led commercial functions at Omio, advisory work with Booking.com, earlier tenure at MSN. 3x founder, with the marketplace, DMOs, and aggregation playbook applied across MENA, Europe, and the US.
Co-founder · COO
Basmah AlShenefi
Saudi national. 10 years inside Saudi gov-tech, most recently HRDF. Owns the regulatory and government-channel relationships that determine speed and access in-Kingdom, the part of the operation that cannot be hired in.
We are EBITDA-positive, decades of experince, 16 months in, not looking for a lifeline but an accelerator, raising to triple ARR over the next 24 months.

Seyaha is already a top seller for multiple major venues, and the default distribution layer for Saudi experiences: every major global OTA, and an expanding portfolio of hotels rely on Seyaha to surface Saudi tourism inventory inside their products. Each booking moves money back into the Saudi tourism supply chain where over 800 suppliers are connected.

GET IN TOUCH