ZOHAIR Khan is in a quandary. His three children and his wife are excited over the summer holiday that starts next week and extends for three whole months. In previous years, the Khans traveled mostly back home to Pakistan during the holidays, and once to Singapore from where they went on package tours to Penang in Malaysia and Bali in Indonesia. The kids remember that trip fondly and are looking forward to something like that this time around. And that's Khan's worry. Like him, several other fathers and husbands across Saudi Arabia are double checking their bank and credit card balances and wondering about traveling abroad this summer, the prospect being not so inviting now because of higher airfares and higher all-round expenses from high crude price. “I wish the Jeddah Summer Festival is exciting enough to keep my family happy here until Ramadan,” Khan said, hoping that an Eid bonus he expects will help cover a quick holiday to Egypt or Dubai towards the end of the long summer holiday stretch. Khan suspects that the 10-year-old Jeddah Summer Festival, as in recent years, may not measure up to his family's expectations. The 45-day-long Jeddah Summer Festival will be launched on July 1. Saleh Al-Turki, Chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has said that some 250 recreational events themed around Saudi traditions were considered this time as the city attempts to make the most from around three million tourists expected to visit during the summer break. For businesses, the annual summer festivals organized in the major Saudi cities help supplement the resident shopping public with cross-city tourists at a time when most people vacation abroad. Otherwise, it would be a lean season for the market; apart from expatriates who schedule their annual vacations accordingly, most Saudis out of the five million who travel overseas each year also favor summer holiday travel abroad. This tendency for most people to opt for foreign travel is mostly because the summer festivals tend to focus mainly on the commercial side – shopping mall activities marked by sales, special offers, raffle draws and bumper prizes – and not much else, as some of the weaker summer festivals of past years have shown. Consequently, there is little about the festival that expatriates look forward to or remember. At a recent press conference called to announce the summer festivals, Prince Sultan Bin Salman, the secretary general of the General Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, conceded that GCTA still faces a big challenge in developing the festivals. “There are many summer tourism events, but we are still in the beginning,” he said, stressing however that GCTA, in partnership with the provinces, “has started executing the tourism event support program, leading to good results through the private sector's participation.” His assurance offers hope that the Jeddah festival that's always themed “Jeddah is Different,” would be indeed different this year, engaging the entire population of the city. Unfortunately so far, the expatriates themselves have chosen not to be greatly engaged in the festival, though there has been talk for some years now about getting the consulates to join in by organizing special events for their communities. Speaking off the record, Consulate officials of some South Asian countries say the hassles of getting permission and finding venues to organize events for their large communities have discourage them from large-scale participation in past festivals.. The officials said they do join in with some activity but it's clearly not to the extent they would like to see. Their concern is that, given the size of their communities, their wholehearted participation could well transform the very nature of the festival into a summer celebration of Jeddah's multicultural facet. According to Al-Turki. “The festival targets tourists and residents... (and it is) “to promote domestic tourism and employment in line with the Saudi customs and traditions.” As such, one consulate official said, “We have to be careful and not overshadow the Saudi cultural promotion objective.” “We have so much to offer, bring artistic troupes from our country – in food, dance, song, literary pursuits – we have everything ready, including ready access to sponsors and funds,” the official said. “What we don't have is more clarity on the extent of our possible participation and the parameters thereof.” An official of another consulate, also speaking on condition of anonymity, however, noted that a new cultural openness is dawning in Saudi Arabia and that it won't be long before the expatriate communities too join in the summer festivities in a big way. For now, no doubt the Jeddah festival's regular attractions like fireworks at the Corniche, Saudi folklore events, concerts, theater, circus, exhibitions, water sports and cruises are largely popular and welcome. However, there remains so much more to offer, considering how cities in other countries innovate and bring in whole new aspects when seasonally celebrating their unique identities. GCTA is already looking into this in an effort to breathe new life into the festivals. It has sent its staff on field visits abroad to study international tourism experiments that can be applied in Saudi cities. It is unclear whether any of their findings will be noticeable this year at the Jeddah festival. Hence, for people like Khan, there's only one way to make the most of this holiday season: get out there and delve into the festival offerings with all enthusiasm – something many expatriates who summer in the city seldom do from an unfortunate and unfounded notion that the annual happening is just not meant for them. __
