RIYADH, 13 May 2007 — Establishing women-only hotels is a growing trend across the Kingdom. However, many people express concern that the new phenomena may cause further gender segregation within society.
Of late many hotels have tried to meet the market demand for women-only accommodation. The Luthan Spa and Hotel is a women-only hotel in Riyadh, which was built by 26 Saudi businesswomen at a cost of SR62 million.
Another new ultra-luxury hotel is the Rosewood Corniche in Jeddah, which recently announced that it has dedicated a floor to women guests, something indicative of the high demand for women-only hotels.
In recent years, Saudi women have adopted a more assertive public role. Saudi women often travel across the Kingdom on work-related business and, due to the Kingdom’s strict rules against gender mixing, are left in difficult situations when checking in at hotels.
The Kingdom’s hotels usually only accommodate women who are either accompanied by male family members or who have the approval of their male guardians in the form of either an approval document stamped by the man’s place of work or letter from a police station.
According to hotel registration figures of three major hotels in Riyadh, the percentage of women booking rooms on their names is minimal.
Michael Gibb, general manger at the Al-Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh, told Arab News that reservations by women do not even make up one percent of reservations at his hotel.
Meanwhile, three percent of reservations at the Sheraton are done by women, while five percent of reservations at the Marriott are done by women. The statistics clearly show that very few women make reservations under their own names.
Local newspapers recently reported that a Saudi mother, accompanied by her two daughters, traveled from Dammam to Riyadh and were forced to sleep in a taxi paying money to the driver after hotels and rental apartments refused to allow them to stay without a letter from their father who was in hospital.
Some Saudi businesswomen view women-only hotels as a solution to the problems they face when traveling. Businesswoman Majdah Al-Kathery said that women-only hotels would help her and would make traveling for her much “easier.” However, Madeeha Al-Ajrosh, a social activist, feels having women-only accommodation in the Kingdom is a double-edged sword.
“Women travelers need to be accommodated whenever they travel and women-only hotels can easily solve these issues. However, we still need to look at the reasons that cause hotels to be less welcoming to single women and not single men. What benefit is a letter from a guardian when women have identification cards, which they could possibly use. It is for reasons like this that we should be more aware of the importance of accommodating women in their own country,” said Al-Ajrosh.
“Today women are issued with national ID cards, which contain their details and pictures, so the rule should be reconsidered,” she said.
Layla Al-Hilali, a social activist and family consultant, believes that establishing women-only accommodation is only a temporary solution and may have the long-term negative effect of creating increased gender segregation.
Al-Hilali added that if society were to continue neglecting women’s needs then one day segregation would become a must in shopping centers, hospitals, airplanes and even on streets. “We have to be rational when it comes to this issue and put the interests of both our men and women citizens first,” she said.
