Pilgrims forced to cut short trips

Hotels in Makkah are hiking room rates by as much as 100 per cent to cash in on a surge of visitors during the first week of Ramadan The huge hike has forced many Umrah pilgrims and visitors to the Haram Mosque to cut short their trip after performing the ritual and spend the remaining days in the nearby cities of Jeddah and Taif. Speaking to Gulf News, some market sources attributed this hike to the usual market conditions of high demand and low supply. More than 3,000 properties have been demolished in northern and north-western areas of the holy mosque as part of the largest ever expansion in the history of the Haram. Most of the demolished buildings were hotels and residential buildings. The current summer vacation is another factor that resulted in a huge rush of pilgrims, especially from the GCC states and neighbouring Arab countries. Hotels in the central Haram area and the adjoining regions in Makkah have registered 100 per cent occupancy over the first days of the fasting month of Ramadan. Rates surge The average price of a room at a five-star hotel shot up to 4,000 Saudi riyals (Dh3,918) per night this week. The average rate for a suite rose to more than 10,000 riyals in the first 10 days of the holy month. It is expected that there will be another 20 per cent increase over the coming days. There has been a rise in the rates for hotels and apartments the closer their proximity to the Grand Mosque. Most of the hotels are reporting booking at 90 per cent for the last 10 days of the holy month. Saeed Al Saleh, a businessman in Makkah, told Gulf News that there are more than 700 hotels in the areas close to the holy mosque. "All these hotels have to tackle with an unprecedented demand from pilgrims and visitors to the city," he said. "Apart from the huge inflow of foreign pilgrims, there has been a heavy rush of Saudi citizens and foreigners who want to spend the last days of their summer vacation in the vicinity of the holy Kaaba." He added that the completion of ongoing building works, including Jabal Omar, the Abdul Latief Group Project and the development project of Shamia would help bring down the rates of rents in coming years. A number of Saudi citizens have urged the authorities to urgently intervene to put an end to the exploitation of the huge demand by owners of hotels and residential apartments. They noted that some hotels charge up to 7,000 riyals for a single day. The citizens stressed the need for fixing reasonable rates. Shock Khaled Al Ghamdi, a Saudi, said that it was a shock for them when they found that the price of a room at an ordinary hotel was 2,000 riyals. "The rate at a luxurious hotel soared to over 5,000," he said. "This forced us to drop our plan of spending the whole fasting month in Makkah and instead return to our region after spending two or three days," he said. Mohammad Hussain, another Saudi, said: "We used to spend the last 10 days of Ramadan at the Haram Mosque in Makkah. But this year, we face a situation of a 100 per cent rise in rents, and this spoiled our Ramadan plans."