In an effort to diversify its economy, fed almost exclusively by petrodollars, Saudi Arabia plans to boost religious tourism industry competing with the neighboring emirates destinations and international visitors to five stars.
is demonstrated by the measures approved by the Saudi authorities in 2010, aimed at improving the quality of services provided each year to millions of Muslim pilgrims visiting Mecca and Medina (according to Saudi officials, two and a half million in 2009, ed ) and promotional activities launched to capture new market shares. A sea of \u200b\u200ba billion and a half of faithful around the globe.
to manage the complicated organizational machinery of the pilgrimages is the Ministry Saudi Hajj, which provides "integrated services to the pilgrims of inviolable house of God," reads the website of the department. The Ministry is headed by the Central Committee Arabia for the Hajj and Omra, the two types of pilgrimage made by Muslims, who gives the tour operators, local and foreign license after careful consideration of the application.
Among the conditions that enable travel agencies must meet, there is an obligation to pay a deposit to the authorities between 20 thousand and 100 thousand euro, which is refunded only if at the end of the stay, no passengers complained of the treatment . This after years of poor accommodation, protests and incidents, very serious, which prompted Riyadh to establish a rigorous system of checks and fines for tour operators that do not respect contracts signed with the pilgrims.
In Muslim-majority countries from which hundreds of thousands of people every year, there are ministries of religious affairs with special departments in constant coordination with fellow Saudis.
For Italy, the annual quota of "travelers of faith" granted by the Saudi kingdom is 3 000 persons per year (1% of the population Muslim, ed), coordinated by a network of agents equipped with special permit: those that are nine licensed to the Hajj, the pilgrimage more, and two for the Omra, the child.
"The pilgrims who left Italy do so almost exclusively for the Hajj, which is a faithful Farida, that is an obligation," he told Lettera43 Hossam Zahran, head of the agency Palma Aquarius tours of Milan.
The share of pilgrims managed by Aquarius is 94 units per year (two or three Italians converted), neither more nor less, established in coordination with other signs: "We all work together on a national basis, many pilgrims come to us on the recommendation of the Islamic cultural centers, "he stated Zahran.
For the greater pilgrimage, according to the lunar calendar This year's 14 to 17 November, traders are used to start preparing three or four months earlier: "It is important to be able to make good places, in hotels and in tents near the sacred area of \u200b\u200bthe Kabah, with fair prices "added travel agent.
Here's a package-type: a pilgrim from Italy 'paid less than you would pay by either Egypt or another Arab country. The cost here is on average between € 3 000 airfare, hotel stay, place in a tent and mattress with air conditioning (during the sacred rites within the zones, ed), meals, drinks, transfers throughout your stay "a dozen days. Excluding gratuities to drivers, messengers and porters.
As for non-Muslim tourists interested in learning to Saudi Arabia, the chances are few: for them the holy places of Islam are not accessible. Then, according to Zahran, "there's not much to see and there are adequate facilities for the reception." Bureaucratic obstacles they lose their appetite: in 2009 there were only granted 20 000 visas are not religious, for business or visiting family members on site.
Who said that a pilgrim does not want to have fun. New "packages" that combine the pilgrimage to the stays are now advertised on the Holiday in Egypt, UAE, Malaysia and Morocco.
Media and upper classes are the main targets of the operation. Large portfolios and moral qualms about where to take the children on holiday? Just licentious Western capitals, the large area of \u200b\u200b"holy".
And the hotel industry flourishes: the signs Mövenpick, Le Meridien, Intercontinental, Rotana, Ramada offers five star accommodation in the heart of Mecca. For cheaper hotels, however, you need to move even hundreds of kilometers in the desert.
http://www.lettera43.it/articolo/1053/pellegrini-con-stile.htm
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