Travel, whether inside the country or abroad, is linked in people’s minds to the summer holidays. People in the Kingdom travel extensively in the summer, mostly to cooler places, to escape our scorching heat and high humidity. Millions of riyals are spent abroad each year at a time when we urgently need to spend locally to boost our own economy. Over the past few years tourism projects and programs have been introduced in many of our cities; they aim to encourage domestic tourism and reduce the number of people traveling abroad. Plans have been made to tap the huge tourism resources but none of these attempts have yet yielded the desired results.
Two main reasons are to blame for the lack of response from the local population — high prices and unpleasant weather. People complain of high rent for housing units, beach cabins and recreational facilities as well as high prices for food; many say they could travel abroad more cheaply than they can in the Kingdom.
Investors who spend millions on domestic facilities complain of low rates of occupancy because vacationers avoid the facilities as they are too expensive. The climate is another factor that has a great influence on domestic tourism. In countries where the weather is often mild or cold, summer is the time to travel to warmer areas and spend a few days sunbathing or relaxing after a cold gloomy winter.
Choosing the hot months of summer as the time for an extended school vacation will not help to encourage domestic tourism. The timing is inconvenient because people will have to vacation in hot and humid weather.
Our schools could have two holidays in a year with the longer scheduled for winter rather than summer. The shorter could be taken at any time. For students and teachers to work during the hot months the schools must be fully equipped to deal with the hot summer weather. School holidays have proven to be a major force driving the economy, stimulating spending and encouraging consumers to travel from one place to another. I hope to see the day when school holidays are adjusted to coincide with our local weather.
13 October 2002
