The global tourism industry has channeled billions into developing countries, and Saudi Arabia also plans to benefit from the boom. But the conservative royal regime is also determined to avoid the sex trade, drug trafficking and other social ills that have followed many countries’ indiscriminate embrace of globe-trotting foreigners.
These days, Saudi Arabia and her fellow Gulf Arab states are pushing for a bigger share of the world's booming tourism market, but with different strategies, according to a report by the Emirates Industrial Bank (EIB).
"Saudi is the most different, with emphasis on domestic tourism, and it plans to tap the large number of (Muslim) religious tourists to the country and promote their longer stay and travel within the country," said the EIB.
The bank said the Gulf monarchies had launched a publicity blitz through a combination of advertising campaigns and staging global media events to raise the profile of the oil-rich region.
In terms of 1998 revenues from visitors, Saudi Arabia held first place with $1.46 billion thanks to pilgrims to Mecca, followed by the United Arab Emirates with $540 million, according to the World Tourism Organization.
In search of more profits, Saudi Arabia's higher tourism commission and the British company Ernst and Young International have signed a contract to develop the tourism sector, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). Under the contract, the British company will establish several projects worth $18 million.
The Saudis have also recently loosened up the restrictions on internal travel by expatriates, a key move in a country that relies on overseas workers for many of its projects.
However, the Saudis could be in for an uphill struggle to make their kingdom attractive to the jet set.
Other countries have had to rely on much more than beaches and mountains to attract foreigners – as noted in a 1998 Toronto Star article, Thailand's $3 billion tourist trade, for example, is built on a foundation of sex tourism. Thailand’s drug trade and other social problems have also grown in step with the tourism boom.
Perhaps as a consequence of not serving up exactly what the world wants, the Arab World is having a rougher time than its more willing neighbors.
EIB, which finances industrial projects, said the Middle East tourism industry as a whole grew by 17.4 percent in 1999, but the Arab World's share of global tourism remained a modest three percent.
Some of this failure to grab a larger slice of world tourism may be laid at the doorstep of a moral code that strictly regulates public behavior.
The New York Times this week took aim at Saudi Arabia’s “bleak deserts and its moral code” in an article on the kingdom’s nascent tourism sector.
“There is just something — be it that drinking a beer is illegal or that women are expected to walk around tented from head to toe in black or that convicted murderers get their heads lopped off on downtown squares — that does not beckon most outsiders,” reads the June 9 article.
The article notes that once upon a time, the only outsiders allowed into the kingdom were Muslim pilgrims — restricted to the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina — and expatriate workers.
Today, however, pilgrims can “roam the entire country and a limited supply of previously nonexistent tourist visas is offered.”
Working in Saudi Arabia’s favor, says the paper, is the fact that the world is offering a dwindling supply of “exotic destinations.”
The Times offers the loaded – not to say snide – assessment that Saudi Arabia “offers a variety of outlandish - not to say bizarre - traditions that might dispel the ennui of the most jaded travelers.”
According to the Times, although the country has not advertised yet, word has quietly gone out to a limited number of “quality tour operators” that Saudi Arabia is open for business, attracting over 1,700 people last year.
Japan, Germany and the United States sent the largest numbers, said the article.
A stop in the magic kingdom will, however, be a little steep for the average Bangkok-bound backpacker.
“Saudia, the national airline, does the visa arrangements and a typical, everything-included, two- week visit costs upward of $7,000,” according to the Times.
The country also wants to encourage more Muslims who come for the annual Hajj pilgrimage, or for Umrah, an off-season visit to the holy cities, to spend more time (and money) in the country.
This could help fill in the economic gaps in a country where tens of thousands of young men are unemployed, even as tourism industry sources estimate that overseas travel expenditure by Saudis will exceed $12.2 billion annually by 2005.
Meanwhile, according to the Times, Saudi Arabia is targeting senior citizens, with some success, since the average age of American visitors is over 65.
At the conclusion of a litany of comparative disadvantages, the Times concedes that “travelers who have completed the trip note that Saudi Arabia has a lot to offer, ranging from unusual Nabatean monuments to the startling desert majesty of the Empty Quarter to the stunning coral reefs of the Red Sea.” – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
