If there is one area where hypocrisy is practiced openly, widely and shamelessly, it is tourism. When it comes to vacationing, there are many who say one thing and do the opposite. We hear people encouraging and aggressively defending domestic tourism, but they do not hesitate to spend whatever they can on vacationing abroad. While they spend lavishly on their overseas trips, these people — who claim to be defenders of domestic tourism — would not dream of spending a few riyals in their own country, a country they claim to love more than any other place on earth.
Come summer and its scorching sun, everyone is trying to leave the country, the very individuals who keep lecturing us on the merits of domestic tourism the first among them. Since I was a child I have been hearing the same story about domestic tourism, with no tangible results on the ground. We keep repeating the same statements, which we know very well are based on a fallacy, and try to convince ourselves that domestic tourism is doing well.
The solution is simple — making people more conscious of their surrounding and instilling in them a culture of tourism. Those who talk loudly about domestic tourism are the ones who never spend the summer in the country. These people should shut up and prove to us that they are sincere by agreeing to spend their vacation here. Watching senior officials and their families vacationing among the people in this country would be worth 1,001 statements.
The poor have no choice but to stay in the country. If we are genuinely interested in encouraging domestic tourism, why then all the exorbitant prices and expensive services charged by local tourist attractions? The poor should be encouraged to come to these places by providing them with services at affordable prices. Otherwise, they will do what others do, take out a bank loan to vacation abroad and spend the rest of the year paying back the debt.
Arab News From the Local Press 12 July 2003
