Saudi Arabia’s Policy about Pilgrimage and Religious Tourism

Today tourism in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is receiving official recognition. It is acknowledged that tourism can contribute a lot to the diversificatioin of the economy and realize sustainable development in the post-oil age. It is also anticipated that this industry will be a major employer of the future generation, helping to resolve the urgent problem of rising youth unemployment. Saudi Arabia is now a leading international travel destination in the Middle East. According to UNWTO’s Tourism Highlights(2012), the Middle East recorded 55 million international arrivals in 2011,occupying 5.6% of the world total. In the same period, Saudi Arabia attracted 17 million international arrivals, occupying 31.3% of the Middle East total. It means that Saudi Arabia has become the country that received the highest number of international tourists in the Middle East. In the past Saudi Arabia devoted little attention to tourism for a combination of social, political and economic reasons. It is well known that Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative countries even in the Islamic countries for its Wahhabist doctrines. For them, Western style leisure oriented tourism was considered to be undesirable and fundamentally incompatible with the Islamic religion. In recent times, however, Saudi Arabia witnessed a dramatic change in its tourism policy. It began to pay attention to the enormous potential of the pilgrimage to Mecca. Thus Saudi Arabia has set up a long term tourism master plan to develop religious tourism, linking the Hajj and Umrah with tourism industry. The result was very successful. In 2011 those on the Hajj and Umrah together accounted for 40% of 17 million inbound tourists and 62.7% of the total inbound tourists’expenditure. Tourism, which is led by the Hajj and Umrah, is now Saudi Arabia’s third largest industry after energy and manufacturing. And it has recently emerged as the second most important source in terms of foreign exchange earnings and job creation. To support tourism industry, the Saudi government is now investing billions of dollars for several projects to develop and expand the Hajj and Umrah related facilities. In 2007 Saudi authorities decided to launch the expansion project of the Al-Masjid al-Haram in the holy city of Mecca, increasing its capacity to more than 2.5 million worshippers. In addition to that, there are many other important projects being conducted or completed such as: Jamaraat Bridge in Makkah, Jabal Omar Development in Makkah, Abraj Al-Bait in Makkah,Makkah Metro, Haramain High Speed Rail Project. It is expected that these projects will help the growth of tourism industry. This paper consists of 5 parts like following: I. Introduction, II. Current situation of Arabia's tourism industry, III. Saudi Arabia pilgrimage and religious tourism promotion policy, IV. Infrastructure projects for fostering religious tourism, V. Conclusion.