RIYADH, 10 October 2004 — With Haj only months away and Ramadan fast approaching, Muslims from all corners of the world are making their way to Makkah and Madinah, where the crowds are already beginning to surge. Hotels in both cities are booming with business, but many of them charge sky-high prices and offer little in return. During the peak Umrah seasons, pilgrims are usually thankful to find any available accommodation, and many hotels, well aware of the pilgrims’ desperate plight, seek to make a handsome and sometimes unjust profit. In some hotels rooms are continually rented out with almost no maintenance, yet pilgrims are willing to stay in them because they have no other choice or cannot afford better accommodation.
“What they are doing is unjust,” said Perween Hanif, a Pakistani expatriate living in Riyadh. “They charge whatever amount they desire knowing that the poor pilgrim has no choice but to pay it, and look at the deplorable state of the rooms they offer in return!”
Seasonal rates generally apply throughout the month of Ramadan and from Dul Qidah 25 till Dul Hijjah 25 and during the mid-year holiday. In one four-star hotel in Makkah, the normal price for a double bed is SR300 per night. The seasonal rates are almost double and triple the normal rates with SR600 at the beginning of Ramadan and SR1,200 toward the end of the month. But unlike the hotel’s glittering front lobby, the rooms are far from immaculate. In one room Arab News found rusted and improperly installed fixtures and a bathroom that was in need of thorough cleaning.
Some pilgrims reserve accommodation through an Umrah services agent, but Perween said not all agents are truthful about the details. One such agent, for instance, assured her husband that he would book the couple a room in a four- or five-star hotel very close to the Haram in Makkah, after her husband had explained that both he and his wife were old and sick and could not walk far. But after the couple arrived in Makkah, they found that the hotel was not near at all, and the room itself, said Perween, was in a deplorable state.
“The bed-sheets were so dirty that we had to buy new sheets to cover them. The bathroom had a clogged drain, which they never fixed in spite of repeated complaints.”
Some of the hotels in Madinah are no better. In one 4-star hotel, Arab News found a lavishly decorated front lobby, but the room upstairs was far from welcoming. Pins and other small items had been carelessly left about on the floor, which indicated that the room had not been thoroughly cleaned since the departure of the previous occupants, posing a danger for small children. The menial furniture with which the room was furnished was also falling apart as were the fixtures in the bathroom. The sink was broken and the bathroom needed cleaning. The “three-bed” room also did not contain three complete beds. There were two proper beds with complete bed-covers and two spare beds without bed-covers. When they asked for another bed-cover, the occupants — a family of three — were told, “There aren’t any available.”
Pilgrims arriving in buses from various cities around the Kingdom have similar woes.
Yasmin, a doctor at a clinic in Riyadh, told Arab News that she has seen a gradual deterioration in hotel and bus services during the nine years she has lived in the Kingdom.
“I stopped using the bus two years ago, because the trip was too rigorous,” said Yasmin. “Most of the buses I traveled by were not in good condition, and the bus route was even worse. We stopped for food and prayers, but there were several other buses with their passengers at the same rest stop and not enough facilities to meet all the passenger’s needs.”
She added that bathrooms in particular posed a major problem, and if by chance a traveler was able to find one vacant, it was usually not clean, even to the point of being unusable.
Bushra, who recently arrived in the Kingdom and has traveled by bus twice, said that next time she plans to travel by air instead. “The trip is very long and the buses are generally not comfortable. The bathroom facilities are terrible, and at one time there was no running water either.”
Both Yasmin and Bushra said that the hotels they were given in Makkah and Madinah, as part of an Umrah package, were often run-down and too far from the Grand Mosques. There was no transportation other than the taxi, “and that meant spending SR100 a day on taxi fare,” added Yasmin.
Jamil Arif, a manager at Ajiad Umrah Services in Riyadh, said that for years passengers have been complaining about the poor services. “I have been working in this field for eight years, and this is a constant complaint,” he said, adding that the rest stops along the bus route are not under the agency’s jurisdiction but need to be upgraded.
According to Arif, there are 8-10 buses per week and 12-13 buses during the peak Umrah seasons, with each bus carrying about 50 passengers. “Our agency tried to urge the people in charge at the rest stops to provide better services for the growing number of passengers, but so far little has changed.”
Arif said there should be a minimum standard for all hotels and there should be fixed rates, so that some pilgrims do not end up paying too much for a room that is worth far less. He added that an umbrella organization for Umrah services was needed and could be more effective in implementing change. Through this organization, the separate Umrah service agencies could come together and address mutual concerns.
“Such a body could ensure that all pilgrims receive at least a decent level of services,” he said.
Better services would also attract more customers, he added.
