Date:
Sat, 24 Jan 2004
Saudi Arabia's profit
from Islam
Profit from the prophet
BEFORE oil, religious tourism was Saudi Arabia's largest industry.
It still ranks a distant second, generating annual revenues of
perhaps $8 billion. Unlike oil, however, the “holy places
hospitality trade”, as local entrepreneurs call it, is free of
price volatility, and its underlying resource will not run out. It
employs four times more workers than the oil industry. Best of
all, it is growing faster than any other sector of the economy.
This may seem surprising, since there are clearly limits to the
number of Muslims who can perform the haj, or pilgrimage to
Mecca. This is a once-in-a-lifetime religious duty incumbent on
all Muslims who can afford the journey. Over the past 30 years
Saudi Arabia has invested $35 billion in improving facilities for
pilgrims, but bottlenecks persist. Moving several million people,
many of them elderly, along a four-day, 28km course of rituals
within strict time limits is hard work.
Between 1950 and 1980 the number of pilgrims soared from 100,000
to 1m a year. Since then the Saudi authorities have imposed quotas
on overseas pilgrims, which currently limit each country to one
haj visa per 1,000 Muslim citizens. Even so, over the past
decade the numbers have crept up by 3.5% a year. The number of
overseas visitors expected this year was around 1.3m, in addition
to 1.4m from within the kingdom.
The
Saudis plan to cope with the continuing rise in demand by
providing better infrastructure and, perhaps more important, by
encouraging religious scholars to be more flexible. After a series
of fatal accidents caused by overcrowding, for example, some Saudi
scholars have extended the time allowed for the ritual stoning of
pillars, one of the concluding rites of the haj.
Come, all ye faithful
The
biggest growth, however, will come not from the haj, but
from the non-obligatory umra, or lesser pilgrimage. Until
recently, the Saudis issued umra visas only for the three
months outside the haj season, banned their holders from
travel outside the holy cities and restricted them to one trip a
year and a maximum of two weeks' stay. All the same, rising
incomes and cheaper, more frequent flights have caused umra
travel to grow by 10% a year for the past decade. Some 750,000
Egyptians alone paid holiday visits to Mecca and Medina last year,
a tenfold increase on 1991. Such visits are becoming increasingly
fashionable even in distant countries such as Malaysia.
The
Saudis have now opened the gates, allowing umra travel for
nine months of the year. Pilgrims can come as often as they like,
move throughout the country and stay for four weeks. Umra
tour operators expect 2m visitors this year and are counting on a
few years of 25-30% annual growth before the trend slows. Prince
Sultan bin Salman, an ex-astronaut who heads the country's newly
created tourist promotion agency, predicts a dizzying 34m visitors
by 2020, and expects them to spend $23 billion. Half are likely to
be umra travellers.
Mecca, where jumbled high-rise buildings already crowd the giant
sanctuary, is getting ready for another boom. Land prices of
$60,000 per square metre, many times more than in other expensive
places such as Hong Kong, have done nothing to deter developers.
Five colossal projects now in progress will alone add 50% to the
accommodation available in the city by 2008.
On
the Mountain of Omar, private developers plan to clear hundreds of
old buildings to make way for 120 residential towers, each 20
storeys high, which will house a total of 100,000 people. On the
hill of Ajyad, the trust that runs the Great Mosque recently
demolished an 18th-century Ottoman fort. In its place will rise 11
apartment buildings, each with 40 storeys, and a 1,200-room
five-star hotel. “Even after 1,422 years”, notes Yasser al-Khouli,
owner of a Jeddah software firm that devises “total solutions” for
the pilgrimage industry, “the business around haj and
umra is still virgin.”
-Economist
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