By Akram Medhat
The Chamber of Tourism Companies has announced the provision of food boxes totaling 14,000 boxes, which the chamber is offering for the first time as a symbolic gift to overland-level pilgrims, in consideration of the social dimension and to ease the hardship of travel for pilgrims traveling by land to perform the pilgrimage during the current 1438 AH/2017 season.
The box contains water, juices and foodstuffs containing salts and sugars to help pilgrims cope with the hardship of travel, and will be distributed in the city of Aqaba in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in cooperation with the Egyptian consulate there and in coordination with the Jordanian authorities through the mission of the Chamber of Tourism Companies and the Ministry of Tourism that will be dispatched there.
In a related context, the mission will head to the port of Aqaba in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the coming days to oversee the tourism companies' compliance and to overcome all obstacles facing them, or tourism pilgrims, while traveling to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to perform this year's Hajj.
On another front, the Chamber of Tourism Companies signed an agreement with a transport company in Cairo and Saudi Arabia to provide backup buses ready to move immediately to transport pilgrims should any bus suffer a breakdown preventing it from completing the trip, starting from the pilgrims' departure from Egyptian territory, through the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, until they reach Saudi territory, whether in Medina or Mecca, as well as during the performance of the Hajj rituals.
This comes as part of the final preparations for the launch of this year's Hajj trips, and out of the chamber's keenness to provide all means ensuring the comfort of the guests of the Most Merciful and to offer them the best transport services.
Operations rooms have also been set up at the chamber's main headquarters in Cairo, at the port of Aqaba in Jordan and in Saudi Arabia, to receive any problems that may arise in transporting pilgrims from the moment they travel until they reach their places of residence, as well as during the pilgrims' return, in order to intervene and resolve them as quickly as possible, around the clock.
