“No registrations for this year will be permitted after May 21,” Director General for Umrah Affairs at the ministry Adnan Hariri said in a recent statement.
The ministry and the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Institute of Haj and Umrah Research are making the final touches to a joint comprehensive study to evaluate services of the existing domestic Haj and Umrah service providers. The study also examines the need to grant licenses to more domestic pilgrim service providers, especially after the ministry cancelled the licenses of a number of companies in the past two years.
Now there are only 48 licensed companies offering domestic pilgrims services while there were 145 companies in the sector in 2010.
Many licenses were cancelled because of the ministry’s strong measures against companies that failed to provide a standard service to pilgrims.
The study will also examine several recommendations to improve the sector.
A report of the ministry’s branch in Madinah said more than 1.5 million Umrah pilgrims visited Madinah since the beginning of the season till last week, registering a 17 percent growth against the same period last year. The report noted that most of the pilgrims came from five countries: Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Indonesia and Jordan.
The inspectors in Madinah discovered 23 violations by Umrah service providers this year. They made 3,583 inspection tours since the start of the Umrah season, the report said.
A number of Umrah service providers said that more companies should cope with the needs of the vastly growing number of Umrah pilgrims every year.
