In an interview with a local newspaper, Prince Sultan ibn Salman, secretary-general of the Supreme Commission for Tourism, told how a foreign media company had to wait 14 months for entry visas for its television crew in order to film a documentary about the Kingdom.
The story shows how bad our image is in the eyes of many outside our borders. The image is bad because we continue to live under illusions while exhibiting excessive sensitivity to certain issues. Yet at the same time, and in direct contradiction, we insist that we are proud of our culture, are happy with our traditions and insist that we have nothing to hide from anyone.
In the case Prince Sultan was talking about, the company intended to promote and benefit the Kingdom. It was the kind of project that, in my view, should never have experienced a second’s delay. The promoters may have used our own money but there is no harm or conflict of interests in such matters because, after all, it is the right of states and organizations as well to do what they think is to their benefit. Why, then, oppose this kind of project? It is a question very hard to understand or even begin to comprehend.
In talking about the matter, the prince spoke in a frank and open way, making no bones about the obstacles he faces in his attempts to promote tourism. Despite his high position and his social status, the prince, like us, was raising the same questions and looking for answers.
The incident raises two important points. The first is that despite the massive development and modernization process that propelled our country into the ranks of developed nations, we still need to seriously address our fear of being in the spotlight. I still recall a story told to me by a government official. During a formal function, he said, a number of individuals attacked the television crew filming the occasion, thinking the crew belonged to an enemy media organization only to discover that the crew had been invited by their own department to film the function. The attackers later apologized for their behavior.
The second point is that each government department seems to be working not in harmony but, rather, in complete isolation from all others. This causes every imaginable delay and confusion. For a television team to arrive at the scene, it has to undergo a long and complicated process of checking with an endless list of administrative offices with each one insisting on going through every paper, without bothering to look at the original document.
— Arab News Local Press 15 October 2003
