RIYADH, 12 May 2004 — The Civil Aviation Commission shut down the online operations of dozens of travel agencies yesterday.
This was only the first in a series of measures against travel agents failing to submit up-to-date details of their staff to the Supreme Commission for Tourism by the May 10 deadline. The agencies may have no choice but to close, according to Muhammad Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, the director of the SCT’s national project for tourism human resource development.
“We have started penalizing certain travel agencies for non-compliance with the SCT’s directives,” Al-Ghamdi said. “The closure of the online system by CAC brought the operation of many agencies to standstill yesterday, because it stopped them even accessing CAC service network or issuing air tickets and made online bookings impossible.”
“CAC had shut down the reservation and ticketing systems of some 34 travel agencies by 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday,” he said.
He said a staggering 50 to 60 percent of travel agencies had not submitted a list of their staff despite repeated reminders. The deadline for the submission of staff lists expired on May 10.
Al-Ghamdi said the SCT took the decision to “show our seriousness about the Saudization policy, which calls for phasing out foreign workers from the travel industry within a given time frame.”
“The penalty will force travel agents to come running to SCT for negotiations,” Al-Ghamdi added.
Nasser Al-Tayyar, of the Al-Tayyar Travel Group, confirmed the news and said he was “greatly surprised” at the SCT’s claim that 50 percent of agencies failed to comply. “But it seems that some agencies that have not complied... are considering wrapping up their business,” he said.
According to SCT, certain front desk jobs must be filled by Saudis during the first year of the three-year grace period agreed after a plan to Saudize all of them by Feb. 21 this year belly-flopped.
