Saudi Arabia a ‘sleeping giant’

Amena Bakr

• Last Updated: May 29. 2008 9:21PM UAE / May 29. 2008 5:21PM GMT

Religious experience: one of the favourite tourist destinations of Muslim pilgrims is the Prophet Mohammed Mosque in Medina. AFP

Saudi Arabia is a sleeping giant that will emerge as one of the top tourism performers in the region if it communicates its strategy clearly to the public, a senior industry analyst said.

“Saudi Arabia is filled with opportunity for tourism growth but the government has to make it clear to tourists what to expect, and what the culture there restricts,” said Rohit Talwar, the head researcher at Fast Future, the UK-based tourism consultancy.

This week Fast Future released an update to its report, The Future of Travel and Tourism in the Middle East – A Vision to 2020.

It said Saudi Arabia’s total tourism revenues were expected to reach US$732 billion (Dh2.7 trillion) by 2020, placing it third in the region after Turkey and the UAE, which were expected to earn $1.16 trillion and $879bn respectively.

“These expectations were based on the current tourism growth rates of the countries and our expectations on how sustainable they will be,” said Mr Talwar.

Earlier this year, Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, the secretary-general of the Saudi Arabian tourism commission, announced that the country wanted to attract an additional 1.5 million tourists every year until 2020.

That figure excludes the millions of Muslims who flock to the kingdom for Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Given the kingdom’s religious conservatism, Mr Talwar said that it was extremely important for the Saudi authorities to clarify their tourism policy. “They just have to be very clear about what tourists should expect, especially if they want women tourists,” he said. “Meeting a tourist’s expectations and clear communication can either make or break Saudi’s growth.”

Mr Talwar said that Saudi Arabia was still not ready for a large inflow of Western tourists.

“However, I do think that there is a great amount of curiosity from Westerners to see [the country],” he said. “A good place to start is with the Muslim tourists that already go there for religious reasons; the key is to extend their stay by offering cultural and family activities.”

During the Arabian Hotel Investment Conference in Dubai earlier this month, Prince Sultan said that the kingdom was two years away from seeing significant numbers of international tourists. “Our readiness level is still not there... and we still don’t have the number of tour operators who are able to handle a huge growth,” he said. “Things don’t happen overnight. It will take a couple of years to develop.”

International hotel developers and management companies are starting to tap into the kingdom’s hospitality market.

Millennium Hotels & Resorts has become the latest entrant, announcing plans this month to open a five-star hotel in the holy city of Medina, consisting of 300 rooms and 1,000 serviced apartments.

“Saudi is such a large market and, with the increased number of pilgrims every year, there is always a shortage of hotel rooms,” said Tarek Elsherif, the regional director of sales and marketing for Millennium.

Statistics compiled by Jones Lang LaSalle, the hotel consultancy company, showed Saudi Arabia was expected to have about 130,000 rooms by 2010, up from 118,000 last year. Jean-Paul Herzog, the president of Hilton Hotels in the Middle East, said that tourism in Saudi was being generated by religious and leisure travellers.

“The government has also helped tourism by stretching the year in terms of issuing more visas more readily for minor pilgrimages,” Mr Herzog said.

Saudi Arabia has attracted 17 million foreign visitors a year, most of whom are pilgrims from the GCC and further afield.

The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) expects revenues per traveller to the kingdom to increase from $2,386 to $2,582 by 2018.

“Visitors from the GCC region are generally high spenders and if they spend more time in Saudi, apart from the pilgrimage season, [the country] will produce results that will surprise us all,” said Mr Talwar.

abakr@thenational.ae