For decades now our country has been dependent on oil and petrochemicals as our only source of income. Now, with the oil boom a thing of the past, with a serious deficit in the budget and with a soaring population growth and a decline in per capita income, oil alone can no longer serve a developing nation.

We have come up with tourism as a new economic venture in addition to oil. What? Saudi Arabia as a tourist destination? A visitor interested in coming to this region might think of Dubai, Oman or Bahrain but certainly not Saudi Arabia.

For starters, we do not issue tourist visas. The only visas are for business and work.

Even journalists sometimes have to wait for months before finally getting a visa from one of our embassies abroad.

Even if there were tourist visas, a visitor would have a difficult time adopting to our strict ways. The first signs of a conservative and even rigid society would greet visitors on their arrival.

A chopped-off Ronald McDonald’s head at the food court of Al-Faisaliah, Riyadh, is a sign that Westernization — even in the form of a food chain — is not wanted here.

And then you have the quiet and dull atmosphere — no music allowed — in the coffee shops all over the city. In the family areas, compulsory curtains are put around every table making some of those inside feel they are in a kind of cell.

The idea of going out to eat and seeing other people eating and enjoying their meal in a public place would not apply in this part of the world.

That is simply because other people do not want you to look at them and do not want to look at you either.

As for prayer times, Muslim or not, you and your family are kicked out — in a polite way of course — ten minutes before the call for prayer, even if you are in the middle of your meal.

Other disturbing signs that reflect our intolerance and rigidity appear in our streets and our malls — faceless people on signs.

The faces of men in an advertisement are covered with paint, tape or plaster. Others, displaying women are the same. Even the faces of children are blotted out — and let’s not forget about women’s products sold in pharmacies.

And then there is sexual segregation and what almost amounts to a phobia when men and women are together. How many times has a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight been delayed because stewards and stewardesses are busy rearranging seats because a man and a woman — for cultural reasons — feel they cannot sit next to each another?

I am still wondering how the Ministry of Transport and the Higher Commission for Developing Riyadh plans to build our first metro system.

Will some of the trains be mixed or will they be segregated like the SAPTCO buses, with women in the back behind a barrier?

As for meeting new people — men and women who are non-relatives —- and inviting them out to dinner, do it at your own risk.

Families going to recreation centers will be shocked to find that there is a day for men and one for women. In other words, families will be split, with the sons going with the father on one day and the daughters with their mother on another.

The truth is that no matter what we do, we are not ready to receive foreign tourists.