The hajj sell

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The hajj is the world’s largest annual pilgrimage, attracting more than three million Muslims from 150 countries each year.

Bucking the downward slide of the Gulf's tourism industry, one sector of the travel market is posting record growth. Joanne Bladd reveals why Saudi Arabia has faith in the rise of religious tourism.

In the dash to diversify Saudi Arabia's petrodollar economy, religious travel has emerged as a surprise contender. For Saudi, a state less associated with sun, sea and sand than straitlaced Sharia law, religious travel offers a lucrative - but suitably devout - bite of the Gulf's tourism cherry.

According to Saudi's Supreme Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA), pilgrims account for more than half of the Gulf's state's 47 million annual visitors. While the credit crunch has seen tourism figures dip across the Middle East, the faith-based market is seemingly immune to economic maladies - in the first quarter of the year, the Kingdom raked in a 30 percent rise in pilgrims.

During the same period, according to Deloitte data, the holy city of Makkah ranked as one of the Middle East's top performing hotel markets, notching up a 32.7 percent rise in revenue per available room (RevPAR).

The industry has immense potential, says Saif Sadedin, a Riyadh-based analyst with Shuaa Capital: a fact that has pushed it to the front of the queue for state funding. Tourism secured a record SR385m ($103m) slice of Saudi's expansionary 2009 budget; a 10.9 percent increase from the previous year's SR347m ($93m) allocation.

"In 2008 there were 10 million visitors to Makkah, and the [SCTA] is expecting that number to double by 2020," Sadedin says. "In terms of Saudi Arabia's non-oil sectors, tourism is becoming increasingly important to a balanced portfolio."

And the Gulf Kingdom can bank on a ready market. Saudi is home to Islam's holy cities of Madinah and Makkah, and the site of the world's largest annual pilgrimage, the hajj. More than three million Muslims from 150 countries are expected to descend on Makkah for the hajj this year, which will fall in November.

An additional 3.5 million Muslims are expected to perform the minor pilgrimage of umrah, attendance for which peaks during the fasting month of Ramadan.

The crowds would be even larger, notes Sadedin, if the infrastructure could support it. The numbers still represent only a fraction of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims.

"The number of visas handed out each year is capped, a limit that reflects the number of pilgrims the holy cities can accommodate," he says. "But this also means capping the revenue from the religious tourism industry."

Little surprise then, that Saudi is pouring billions of riyals into overhauling the infrastructure that feeds the two cities. Topping the project list is the 444km-long Makkah-Madinah rail link, a $6bn system that will ferry pilgrims between the two cities, via Jeddah, in around 30 minutes. The journey by road can take between four to five hours.

Madinah airport is also earmarked for a $2.4bn upgrade, a move that would allow the terminal to handle 12 million passengers a year; a four-fold increase on its current capacity.

Luxury travel operators have also been quick to scent rich pickings in Saudi's faithful. Whereas religious tourism was traditionally associated with sackcloth and ashes, the industry is now witnessing a rising demand for high-end travel. Makkah, for example, is now home to a glut of five-star hotels, with brands such as Hilton and Le Meridien counted among them, while tour operators are lining up to offer gold-class hajj packages.

"Religious tourism is one of the greatest stories never told in the travel industry," says Kevin Wright, president of the World Religious Travel Association (WRTA).

"It's a very large business - or, rather, it takes business to help people fulfil their faith traditions."

The industry has come a long way from its stripped-down roots, he notes.

"Across the board, we've seen a shift from the budget, almost penitential, mentality to a demand for high quality."

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READERS' COMMENTS

Religious Travel Saudi Arabia
Posted by C.B.Osborne, London, UK on Tuesday 25 August 2009 at 23:18 UAE time


You can hardly make a comparison with religious travel to Saudi Arabia - ie `the hajj` - is a requirement of Islam - with ordinary tourism in the other Gulf States.

CEO
http://religious-tourism.com

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