RIYADH — Saudi Arabia has raised about SR62 billion ($16.5 billion) from Muslim pilgrimages this year to Makkah and Madinah, religious tourism sources have said. A total of 12 million pilgrims visited Islam's holiest sites during this year's Haj or for the year-long Umrah, or minor pilgrimage, according to sources quoted by local media Thursday. The pilgrims — including 3.1 million who performed the Haj, according to official figures — spent SR62 billion, a rise of 10 percent over 2011 because of increased costs, sources were quoted as saying. It represents three percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), sources said. The revenue earned this year positively reflects on the services utilities including hotels, money exchange outlets, retail shops, telecommunication and eateries in the Western Region, economic experts said. They stressed on the need to employ more Saudi youth in religious tourism sector so as to reduce dependence on expatriate workers who are hired temporarily during the season. This, the experts said, can be done gradually and in the meantime Saudi youth can be trained to perform different tasks related to Haj and Umrah. On an average, a pilgrim spends SR7,000 to SR15,000 during his stay in the Kingdom. This year's Haj, Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Emir of Makkah region and Chairman of the Central Haj Committee said, was one of the most successful pilgrimage seasons despite the huge number of illegal pilgrims “Everything went very well,” Prince Khaled said, adding that this year's pilgrimage was “the most successful Haj season ever.” The Emir said the number of pilgrims this year was between 3.16 to 3.65 million, blaming the inaccuracy on the enormous number of unregistered pilgrims. There were between 1.3 to1.4 million pilgrims with no Haj permits this year and they used services they were not entitled to, the Emir said, adding that this huge number of unregistered pilgrims caused many problems for the Haj organizing committee. About 120,000 police were deployed throughout the five-day pilgrimage, along with an equal number of health and sanitation employees. Though marred in the past by deadly incidents including floods, stampedes and fires, the Haj has become nearly incident-free in recent years because of multi-billion dollar projects.
