Travel doesn't stop: Kuwaitis and residents' summer holiday bill hits 1 billion dinars
Ali Ibrahim
It appears that Kuwaitis’ passion for travel knows no quiet season. Even amid the region’s geopolitical tensions and the challenges reflected in aviation movements and the limited capacity of Kuwait International Airport, spending abroad remained robust during the peak summer months. The bill for what citizens and residents spent outside the country during June, July, and August approached one billion dinars.
Official data from the Central Bank of Kuwait revealed that total spending abroad over the three summer months reached approximately 959.1 million dinars, through more than 42.7 million purchase and withdrawal transactions. This indicator reflects the sustained intensity of travel-related and foreign spending during the summer vacation period.
Over just 92 days, the average daily spending abroad was approximately 10.43 million dinars, meaning that more than 10 million dinars left the country daily through direct or electronic purchases and cash withdrawals during June, July, and August.
The composition of spending shows that travelers did not rely on a single payment channel. Expenditures were distributed among direct point-of-sale purchases abroad, transactions executed through foreign e-commerce sites, and cash withdrawals from automated teller machines (ATMs), reflecting the broad use of various payment methods during the travel season.
Point-of-sale transactions led direct spending channels abroad, recording purchases worth 490.3 million dinars over the three months, executed through approximately 25.834 million transactions.
On a daily average basis, point-of-sale spending reached approximately 5.33 million dinars per day, while the average transaction value was about 18.98 dinars, reflecting the intensive use of cards and electronic payment methods in travelers’ daily purchases.
At the same time, cash maintained its presence in the foreign spending bill. Total cash withdrawn from ATMs abroad reached approximately 73.8 million dinars through nearly 995,700 withdrawal transactions over the three summer months.
Accordingly, the average daily cash withdrawal was approximately 802,000 dinars, while the average value per withdrawal transaction was about 74.12 dinars. However, the share of cash remained limited compared to amounts spent directly through point-of-sale terminals and e-commerce sites.
Parallel to travel-related spending, purchases through foreign e-commerce sites reached a high level of approximately 395 million dinars during June, July, and August, through about 15.885 million transactions, making it one of the largest channels of foreign spending during the summer months.
The average daily spending through foreign e-commerce sites was approximately 4.29 million dinars, while the average transaction value reached about 24.86 dinars.
A comparison of payment methods shows that point-of-sale and e-commerce sites together accounted for 885.3 million dinars of the total 959.1 million dinars spent, compared to only 73.8 million dinars withdrawn in cash. This reflects the growing weight of electronic payments in the spending of citizens and residents abroad.
The significance of these figures extends beyond the sheer volume of money spent; the transaction density reveals widespread and continuous daily spending activity. Point-of-sale alone recorded approximately 25.834 million transactions over 92 days, equivalent to nearly 281,000 transactions per day.
The average number of e-commerce purchase transactions was approximately 172,700 per day, alongside nearly 10,800 daily cash withdrawals.
Combining all payment channels, the average number of transactions executed abroad reached approximately 464,300 per day during the summer months. These figures reveal that the travel bill was not formed by a limited number of high-value transactions, but rather by millions of repeated transactions and purchases throughout the vacation period, clearly reflecting the continued association of the summer season with intensive travel and foreign spending.
