Turmoil across the Arab world has disrupted the flow of Umrah pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, resulting in a loss of SR50 million for companies since the beginning of the season in February 2011, claim some operators.

Ahmad Abdul Rahman, Chairman of Al-Baraka International Company for Umrah Services, said most of the Umrah companies operating in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Iraq and Iran have suffered huge losses because of the reservations they made in Makkah hotels for their customers. He attributed this to events taking place in Egypt and Tunisia which have disrupted the flow of pilgrims from these two countries. This has inflicted huge losses on Umrah companies in these two countries.

The slow issue of Umrah 2011 visas has also contributed to the losses, he claimed. However, other sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it is too early to determine if these companies are losing or making profits because the Umrah 2011  season has just started. They said pilgrims from these countries, including Indonesia, are estimated at more than one million people.

“By simple calculation, if we assume that each Umrah performer spends SR1,000, then this shows that the losses of the Umrah companies may reach SR1 billion over the entire season.  This can be only decided or confirmed at the end of the season.”

Engineer Saud Abdul Aziz Al-Sulaimani, Director General of the International Company for Internet and Telecommunications - the company in charge of issuing electronic Umrah visas – said 500,000 visas have been issued since the beginning of the season. He described the figure as a record compared to the same period last year. He said the Ministry of Haj is helping to remove obstacles facing the Umrah companies, to minimize their losses.
He said last year there was a problem stemming from the non- classification of some hotels as per the requirements of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities.

But this has now been resolved, which has shown in the increased number of classified hotels. Abdul Aziz Al-Raqabi, the Kingdom’s General Consul in Jakarta, said there should not be a problem with Umrah pilgrims coming from Indonesia because the embassy there simply stamps the visas in passports after the Umrah companies provide the embassy with the electronic visas. He said the embassy sometimes completes up to 5,000 visas a day.

Saudi Gazette