SAUDI ARABIA: Approximately 2 Million Visit The Holy City Of Makkah To Perform Hijjah

Approximately two million people from across the globe are visit the Holy City of Makkah, Saudi Arabia, making it the largest annual international gathering, and which, for many Muslims, is the highlight of their spiritual lives.

Ministry of Culture and Information, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced on August 26, 2017 that 1.497 million pilgrims have flocked to the country in preparation for the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage, which begun on August 30, 2017 and ends on the September 4, 2017

As one of the five pillars of Islam, the annual pilgrimage to Makkah, is mandatory for physically and financially capable Muslims to perform at least once in their lives.

The rituals involved are intended to cleanse the soul and demonstrate the equality and solidarity of all Muslims, in their submission to God.

The number of foreign pilgrims has multiplied exponentially over the years, from as few as 24,000 in 1941 to 1.325 million in 2016. Including local pilgrims that reside in Saudi Arabia, a total of 1.86 million Muslims performed the Hajj last year.

Saudi officials have prepared to receive the massive influx of pilgrims, many of whom also visit the second Holy City of Madinah.

The Hajj team deployed on the ground speaks over a dozen languages to ensure that the needs of pilgrims are met.

Mina is also known as the City of Tents as it hosts tens of thousands of air-conditioned tents as temporary accommodation for a significant portion of the pilgrims expected to take part in Hajj this year.

Mina is located between Mount Arafat and Makkah's Grand Mosque. The tents are neatly arranged in rows and grouped into areas labeled with numbers and colors according to nationality.

Every pilgrim is given a badge with an assigned number and color to help them find the way back to their tent if they get lost. To prevent fires, the tents are constructed of Teflon-coated fiberglass, and are fitted with sprinklers and fire extinguishers.

More than 17,000 highly trained personnel, supported by 3,000 advanced vehicles, are in position to guarantee pilgrims the highest level of safety.

Over 2,000 Saudi Red Crescent Authority personnel deployed in Makkah, Madinah and other holy sites to provide ambulance services to pilgrims during Hajj.


Tourism Observer

SAUDI ARABIA: Tourism To Generate 1.7m Jobs By 2020

Job opportunities in the tourism sector of the Kingdom are expected to reach 1.7 million by 2020, according to the Tourism Information and Research Center (MAS), the statistical division of the the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTNH).

“This total figure includes the number of direct and indirect jobs in the labor market in the tourism sector and other sectors associated and benefiting from tourism in the Kingdom,” the latest report released by MAS said.

The statistical report further said that the number of jobs in the tourism accommodation sector in 2015 will go up to 113,048 and this number is expected to increase to 129,526 jobs by 2017 due to the execution of a number of hotel mega-projects across the Kingdom especially in the two Holy Cities of Makkah and Madinah and in the capital city Riyadh.

MAS statistics further indicated that the number of direct job opportunities in the tourism sector until the end of 2014 reached over 795,000 and the number is estimated to rise to over 840,000 by the end of 2015, while the number of indirect jobs by the end of 2014 reached over 397,000, and is expected to exceed 420,000 by the end of 2015.

The total of direct and indirect jobs was 1,192,285 by the end of 2014, and this number is predicted to rise to 1,262,153 by the end of 2015.

Moreover, according to the report the tourism accommodation sector in the Kingdom is witnessing rapid growth in investments, as the number of tourism accommodation facilities (hotels, furnished apartments, hotel villas, hotel apartments, tourism inns, roadside hotels and resorts), reached 3,710 by the end of 2014, with 1,222 hotels and 2,488 furnished apartments.

Keeping with this trend, the number of hotel rooms in the Kingdom has reached 299,500 and furnished apartments 87,050.

Notably, tourism is currently the second most important economic sector in the Kingdom, where Saudization has reached 28 percent and the estimated number of people working in the tourism sector by 2025 is predicted to reach 317,352 compared to 94,249 in 2014.

According to industry experts, the tourism sector has potential to create concrete change in the national economy and emerge as the future alternative to crude oil.

UAE: Gulf Tourists Spent SR22bn In Kingdom Last Year

Saudi Arabia's pavilion at Arab Tourism Exhibition in Dubai.

Last year, 6.6 million tourists from the Arabian Gulf spent SR22.8 billion in the Kingdom, according to a report from the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTNH) released here this week.

A report by Tourism Information and Research Center (MAS), the statistical arm of SCTNH, indicated that the number of people who visited the Kingdom during the past year (2014) from GCC countries was 11.3 million visitors.

One-day visits, without an overnight stay accounted for SR4.7 million. Over 6.6 million tourists spent about SR22.8 billion — where the one-day visitor without an overnight stay is not considered a tourist by global tourism concept.

Both Kuwait and Bahrain had a large presence in terms of the number of tourist arrivals to the Kingdom by about 33 percent each, followed by Qatar and the United Arabic Emirates.

The Makkah province including Makkah, Jeddah and Taif, occupied the first position in receiving GCC tourists, followed by Madinah, Eastern Province, Riyadh and Asir.

The first half of 2015 provided a total number around 7.4 million GCC visitors to the Kingdom, an increase of 25 percent compared with the same period last year, of whom 2.1 million visitors were day visitors-without overnight stay. About 5.2 million tourists spent about 30.5 million nights and spent nearly SR11.8 billion which went into the Saudi economy.

The ministers of tourism of GCC countries endorsed in their second meeting, which was held in Doha on October 7, a plan of action to strengthen intraregional tourism, and established a group chaired by Prince Sultan bin Salman, president of SCTNH, to lay out a comprehensive joint tourism vision, for strategic goals, in addition to preparing an implementation plan to achieve the vision and strategic goals within three months.

SCTNH supports Saudi travel companies in organizing tours for GCC nationals through engaging them in specialized travel exhibitions such as Arabian Travel Market, which is held annually in Dubai, and the Travel and Tourism Exhibition in Kuwait.

UAE: 191,047 Hotel Rooms Under Contract In The Region

Number of rooms under contract up 26.3 per cent compared to September 2014.

There were 763 hotels, with 191,047 rooms under contract in the Middle East and Africa region in September, according to a report from research firm STR Global.

The number of rooms under contract rose 26.3 per cent compared to the same period in the previous year.

Meanwhile, 103,749 rooms in 401 hotels in the region were under construction last month, up 42.1 per cent year-on-year.

Dubai reported the largest number of rooms under construction with 19,719 rooms in 67 hotels. It was followed by Makkah, with 16,153 rooms, Doha, with 7,315 rooms and Riyadh, with 6,131 rooms.

The growth in hotel room supply in Dubai has put pressure on room rates. According to an STR Global report, average room rates were down 2.6 per cent year-on-year in September to reach Dh645.6. This, coupled with a 0.3 per cent decline in occupancy to 76 per cent, pushed down revenue per available room (RevPAR — an industry measure of occupancy and rates) by 3 per cent to Dh491.

“Overall, the shift of Eid al-Adha from October 2014 to September 2015 led to an 11.7 per cent year-over-year increase in ADR [average daily rate] during the week of 20-26 September,” STR Global said in a statement.

While supply rose 5.4 per cent last month, demand was up 5.1 per cent.

“Supply growth in Dubai remains significant, and demand improved from August. Through the first eight months of 2015, supply growth (+6.3 per cent) outweighed demand growth (+5.2 per cent) in the market,” STR Global stated.

Dubai expects to see 20,000 additional hotel rooms by 2016, according to the Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM).

A number of hotels are scheduled to open in Dubai in the next few years, such as the Aloft in Dubai World Central, the Jumeirah Business Bay and the Bulgari resort.