JEDDAH, 16 August 2005 — Starting next February, the Foreign Ministry will issue tourist visas to all prospective visitors regardless of their religion, press reports said yesterday quoting an informed source at the ministry.
“The ministry will issue tourist visas to Muslims as well as non-Muslims after Dul Hijjah 1426,” the source told Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News. The source said it was imperative that the Kingdom implement a visa regime to boost tourism and as part of preparations to join the World Trade Organization.
“Muslim tourists will receive visas for both Umrah and tourism,” the source said, adding that Muslim women must have a legal companion while non-Muslim women should have a sponsor in order to get visas.
In an earlier statement, Prince Sultan ibn Salman, secretary-general of the Supreme Commission for Tourism, said the tourist visa project was in the final stages and would come into effect in a few months. The Kingdom has set up a committee composed of representatives of various government departments to work out mechanisms for issuing business and tourist visas at airports.
Abdul Rahman Al-Jeraisy, chairman of the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry, hoped the panel would make recommendations to enable businessmen and tourists to get visas at airports. Many GCC countries now issue visas on arrival.
Jeraisy said many semi-government agencies and private firms were holding their conferences outside the Kingdom because of difficulties in getting visas for participants. “We have to take immediate steps to tackle this problem by providing visas for businessmen and tourists at airports,” he added.
The Foreign Ministry issued 5,537 tourist visas this year to Americans, Europeans and Africans under the Saudi Arabian Airlines’ “Discover Saudi Arabia” package.
Yousuf Abdul Qader Atiyya, the airline’s assistant vice president for customer services, said the first group of tourists under this program came by the end of January from the Italian city of Milan. “We also brought tourists from France and Taiwan in February,” he added.
More than 5,000 Americans, Europeans and Japanese have visited the Kingdom since the program was first introduced in 1996, Atiyya said. Some 1,100 Japanese came from Osaka on Saudia flights, he added.
The tourists came on one- to two-week package tours organized by Saudia agents abroad and were taken to resorts and heritage sites in Jeddah, Riyadh, Abha, Dammam, Najran and Madain Saleh.
The SCT has taken a series of steps to strengthen the Kingdom’s tourism industry. According to Prince Sultan, tourism projects worth SR50 billion will be established in various parts of the country.
“We’ll establish coastal resorts on the Red Sea and operate tourist centers in the Kingdom’s rural areas to ensure continuous development of urban and rural areas and promote domestic tourism,” he explained. He underlined government efforts to preserve the Kingdom’s architectural heritage. “There are 6,366 heritage and antiquities sites in the Kingdom; of that number, 1,975 come under architectural heritage,” the prince said.
Building a robust tourism sector contributes effectively to the local economy. “It is beyond doubt that achieving and enhancing this sector depends, for the most part, on a cultured, friendly and a motivated society,” Prince Sultan said.
A report issued by the International Tourism Organization said that 7.3 million people visited the Kingdom last year with 3.5 million coming for Umrah, 1.3 million for Haj and 2.5 million for medical treatment and conferences. According to a recent survey, 70 percent of Umrah performers from 82 countries said they wished to visit other parts of the Kingdom besides the holy places.
