Though some Saudis tend to look at expatriates as having lockers full of money that they save annually, expatriates who spoke to Arab News said they spend all saved money on their annual travels, which include tickets, gifts and their own belongings.

These expenses have driven a number of them to reduce the frequency of their visits.

Um Firas, a Tunisian woman whose husband works at a local establishment, said she has reduced her spending to save for the annual trip home.

“We stopped going anywhere but to shopping centers or the Balad (Jeddah’s historic center),” she said. “I promised the kids we would buy them fun stuff for our trip home.”

Um Firas said she started shopping for stuff to take home in May and still has things to buy before she travels.

“We buy almost everything we can to give to our relatives and neighbors: Clothes, shoes, watches souvenirs and some electronics, which our cousins love,” she said. “Usually I write down a list, but I find that I am not sticking to it. The gifts cost me between SR10,000 to SR15,000 annually,” she said.

She added that what is also financially exhausting is that they have to buy new stuff for herself and her four children because people would look down on them if they still have last year’s belongings.

Um Firas criticized people living outside the Kingdom who believe that people who work in Saudi Arabia have a large amount of disposable income.

She also said that the stereotype that Saudis believe in is not true which regards all expatriate as coming here to merely collect money.

“That is not true,” Um Firas said.

“Whatever we manage to collect ends up in the pokes of the Saudi traders!”

Um Firas explained that thinking of all these expenses, many fathers tend to leave their families back in their home countries and instead travel on their own to work in the Kingdom.

Arab News toured around different crowded shopping centers and also around Balad area and noticed expatriate families of various nationalities shopping for bags, clothes, shoes, watches, accessories, electronics and carpets, among other things.

Some shops at Balad were crowded with specific nationalities while other areas looked like a melting pot of cultures.

A Yemeni salesman confirmed that this time of the year is as profitable as Ramadan.

“It is not traveling expatriates only,” he said. 

“In Jeddah the season has just got started and we are expecting more as people living nearby to start arriving to Jeddah for vacations and shopping.”