RIYADH — The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) has started imposing fines of up to SR5000 on hotels and furnished apartments for photocopying ID documents of guests, press reports said Monday. A decision by the Ministry of Interior banning hotels and furnished apartments from photocopying ID documents of guests came into force from the beginning of this summer, Al-Hayat newspaper reported quoting an official. The decision was taken as a security precaution. Saad Al-Qahtani of SCTA said the Commission was still receiving complaints from guests, which indicated the failure of some institutions in the hospitality sector to abide by the ministry's order. “One of the problems linked to the implementation of the ministry's order was the fact that not all the housing units in the Kingdom were registered under the ‘Shamous' Security System,” said the official, pointing out that some hotels had more than 200 rooms but only 50 of them were registered under the system. Al-Qahtani also said that security authorities were solely responsible for overseeing these facilities and preventing these violations, since the measure was purely a security one and the SCTA was in the process of being linked to Shamous system. Al-Qahtani said that the commission started classifying chalets in Jeddah and Tabuk only after it was done with classifying the hotels and furnished flats in the cities, which constituted the majority of the accommodation units in the Kingdom. He said that the word “chalet” would soon disappear from the tourism maps and will be replaced with the term “tourist shelters.” — SG
