RIYADH, 28 March — The six-day international symposium on ecotourism that got under way in Riyadh this week comes in the wake of the Kingdom’s massive drive to boost domestic tourism and attempts to attract private sector investments required to do so. The potential benefits are huge: thousands of new jobs for Saudis youths, among whom unemployment is rising, and tens of billions of riyals for the economy which Saudis spend vacationing abroad every year.

According to Prince Sultan ibn Salman, secretary-general of the Supreme Commission for Tourism, Saudi tourists spent over 100 million nights abroad in 4.4 million trips during 2000, the last year for which statistics are available. On average, each night cost them $135, bringing the total spending to about $14.4 billion. Prince Sultan has also said that he anticipates that new investment in the domestic tourism sector should create at least 164,000 jobs. Out of a combined Saudi (15 million) and expatriate (5 million) population, 12,500 people are employed in the hotel industry. However, only seven percent are Saudis.

The thrust of the symposium is to provide input into the strategy for promoting ecotourism in the Kingdom in the light of the international experience, so that while the national economy benefits the local environment does not suffer as a result.

The other main challenge for the tourism planners is how to motivate Saudis to take time out to explore their own country. Saudis will account for 2.8 percent of the total global spending on tourism by 2005, according to a recent survey; but at present only 24 percent of Saudi tourists visit summer resorts inside the country. On the other hand, 29 percent travel to Arab countries, while the rest — 47 percent — visit destinations in the US and Europe.

It is against this backdrop that the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development has drawn up a Master Plan for developing ecotourism in the Kingdom, which covers 102 protected areas (or 10 percent of the Kingdom’s area) that will eventually be given over to the private sector for development on a commercial basis. These areas form part of the 10,000 potential tourist spots surveyed by the Supreme Commission for Tourism.

Talking to Arab News, Dr. Abdul Aziz Abuzinada, secretary-general of NCWCD, said that copies of the Master Plan have been distributed to the conference delegates with the intention of revising it at a workshop organized to take account of the feedback.

While NCWCD has announced that private sector participation will be sought in the promotion of wildlife tourism, the small details have still to be finalized.

As Dr. Abuzinada observed: “First of all, you need to know which protected areas are suitable for tourism promotion. Shall we have zoning or not? What arrangements should be made for accommodation, which currently does not exist? Should there be camping grounds or lodging?”

The protected areas will be declared off-limits to tourists so that the wildlife there can continue to thrive as before.

Regulations already bar citizens from using firearms for hunting. However, they may use falcons or Saluki dogs during hunting trips. “Shoot with your camera and not with your gun” is the slogan NCWCD is trying to popularize as the governing philosophy in the protected areas.

Bred Beeler, director of Worlds Apart, a California-based travel agency, visited the Kingdom earlier this year leading an expedition to Empty Quarter (Rubul Khali), the historic Hijaz Railway and Meda’in Saleh.

Contacted by Arab News and asked to reflect on the experience, she said that the Empty Quarter in particular “is truly pristine and should not be disturbed”. However, she added that she was “sad to see the damage being done to the petrified forest area in that region, and its lake beds, fossils, hammer axes, grinding stones and so on. Much of the petrified wood has been removed from the area during the last four years.”

Speaking from Jeddah, Victor Organ, who was instrumental in developing Red Sea tourism and has personally done over 5,000 dives there over the past 20 years, told Arab News that most of the coral reefs spreading over a 3,000-square mile stretch are still in a pristine state.

Some, however, have been damaged as a result of coastal development projects. “Over-fishing by subsistence fishermen using nets and fishing along the shore have also had a negative impact on the coral reef,” said Organ, who has been a diving instructor since 1985.

He said spear-fishing is the cleanest form of fishing as it leaves the coral reef intact and does not cause any collateral damage. But the onshore reefs have suffered from onshore fishing in the Jeddah area.

He said difficulties in obtaining a tourist visa and a lack of any initiative on the part of Saudi Arabian Airlines to boost tourism means many Westerners go instead to Sharm El-Shaikh.

“No wonder, we have had only 250 tourists since Al-Saif, the first dive boat, was chartered by Dr. Talal Bakr in 1987,” Organ said.

These stories — and there are many more like them — show just how timely the present conference on ecotourism is.