Hotel occupancy rate in Makkah, Madinah high

Makkah: Hotels and furnished apartments in the central area of the Haram Mosque in Makkah and the Mosque of the Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) in Madinah are experiencing a surge in visitor numbers.

The occupancy rate of hotels and apartments reached about 95 per cent, which is almost similar to the peak Umrah season during the holy month of Ramadan or the Haj days.

This unprecedented rush is attributed mainly to the short mid academic year vacation for schools in the Kingdom that started last Wednesday.

There was a heavy rush of Umrah pilgrims from countries like Turkey, Iran and many other Muslim countries. Almost all the restaurants, cafeterias, and commercial shops in the holy cities are coping with the surge of pilgrims.

Speaking to Gulf News, Sa'ad Al Quraishi, owner of an Umrah service providing company, Tala'at Tunisi and Marwan Sha'aban, directors of Umrah firms, said that the companies and establishments were successful in marketing their Umrah package through their foreign agents in various countries.

"Our foreign agents are striving hard to capitalise on the desire for a large number of Muslims to perform Umrah and visit the Prophet's (PBUH) Mosque in a comfortable way. New Umrah regulations to guard pilgrims from fraudulent means and cheating serve as a boost for many an intending pilgrims," they said.

They noted that Iranians constitute the largest segment of Umrah pilgrims in the holy cities this time.

"The number of Iranian pilgrims exceeded 200,000. There is a possibility that the number of Iranian pilgrims would cross the mark of 700,000 by the holy fasting month of Ramadan. There is also a strong presence of Turkish pilgrims this time," they said.

Meanwhile, real estate dealers in Makkah attributed the highest occupancy rate of hotels and furnished apartments in Makkah to the demolition of buildings that facilitated the largest ever expansion in the history of the Haram Mosque.

More than 1,000 hotels and residential buildings as well as commercial shops located mainly in the north western Shamia area were demolished after paying compensation to their owners last year.

In addition to these, several huge residential complexes are under various phases of construction and expansion works in the central Haram area.

Al Sharif Mansour Abu Riyash, chairman of the real estate committee at the Makkah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told Gulf News that the increase in the rents for residential buildings in the central area of the Haram Mosque is mainly because of the demolition of about 1,150 buildings and real estate properties as part of the expansion of the Grand Mosque's north and north west courtyards.

"This forced several Umrah firms to rent out buildings for the pilgrims outside the central area of the Haram," he said.

Confirming this, several people working with the hotel industry in Makkah said that there is an intense pressure on the operation of the hotel industry in the old Hejaz region of Makkah, Madinah, Jeddah and Taif due to the huge rush of Umrah pilgrims and the ongoing expansion works of the Haram central area, unaffected by the global economic meltdown.