Hesham Idris: Increasing Saudi agents to 800 companies will fuel competition and benefit Umrah pilgrims
By Akram Medhat
Hesham Idris, chairman of Al Wadi Group for tourism companies, said that the new regulations and mechanisms for the Umrah season recently announced by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, applied from the start of the season on the first of Muharram 1439 AH, will be in the interest of Egyptian tourism companies and Egyptian Umrah pilgrims, because competition will be decisive in attracting customers. They also require rearranging the system in Egypt in line with the new changes.
Idris explained to "Travel Yalla News" that the number of Saudi agents has risen from only 48 to about 800. Therefore, after an agent had controlled about 20 Egyptian tourism companies and imposed prices on them in contracts, competition will become fierce, especially as the number of foreign companies an agent deals with has been limited to only 5 in each country.
He added that Saudi Arabia expanded the number of agents providing Hajj and Umrah services around the world because of poor service and complaints from many tourism companies, due to the increase in the number of Umrah and Hajj pilgrims after the restoration of the 20% of visas that had been cut during the expansion of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The Kingdom also aims to increase the number of Umrah pilgrims to 20 million a year by 2030, and therefore, when pilgrims are free of restrictions, their decisions and choice of programs will be faster and better.
He continued: "Each Saudi agent will have 50,000 visas throughout the year worldwide, and a maximum of 5,000 visas has been set for each foreign agent in any country. Tourism companies will be subject to this, after the ceiling was open last year, which opens the way for all companies to increase their volume of business, even those with a limited number of customers, and prevents monopoly."
He noted that the new regulations approved by Saudi Arabia also require every Egyptian tourism company operating Umrah programs to pay 2,000 Saudi riyals as a registration fee on the website of the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah to activate its operation and electronic system.
He pointed out that all Egyptian tourism companies are awaiting the Ministry of Tourism's announcement of the Umrah season regulations, and whether we will start announcing programs and contracting for them at the start of the year or whether there will be other decisions that may delay the start, as happened last year, when the season was squeezed into only 3 months, especially as the electronic system for registration and issuing Umrah visas started early, on the first of Muharram, instead of the middle of the month as last year.
He said that contracting between the Saudi company and the foreign agent will be electronic, with no paper copies, explaining that the role of the Saudi agent will not differ from the main purpose of its business, which is contracting with tourism companies on a package of services for the Umrah pilgrim, including visa issuance procedures, hotel bookings, transport, and receiving and seeing off pilgrims.
