Watch: SR13 million up for grabs as provincial camel pageant makes debut in Saudi Arabia's Tabuk

Cairo: Saudi Arabia’s first provincial camel festival has kicked off in the northern city of Tabuk with over SR13 million up for grabs.

The 10-day event is part of a plan to promote the Arabian camel heritage in different parts of the kingdom, organisers say.

The festival, which got underway on Thursday, drew a large crowd who eagerly watched a set of opening activities including a procession of vintage cars and a parade of camels. The event is organised by the Saudi Camel Club.

“The festival aims at deepening the camel heritage, enhancing it in the Saudi and Arab culture and providing a cultural, tourist, entertainment and economic destination linked to camels,” the club’s chief executive Raed bin Abdulaziz was quoted by the Saudi news agency SPA as saying.

The organising committee said it was necessary for camels registered to participate in the productive stallion category to show up over the period from May 21 to June 3 to undergo paternity tests. No-showing will lead to invalidation from participation, it added.

Saudi Arabia annually hosts the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, the world’s such biggest pageant.

Around 1.8 million fans flocked to the flaghship camel event in its latest edition that ran for 45 days and concluded last January near the capital Riyadh, according to officials..

A total of 35,000 camels competed in the seventh edition of the festival against 24,000 in the sixth edition.

Camels are a popular animal closely linked to heritage in Saudi Arabia.

The animal has long been dubbed as the “ship of the desert”, being the lifeline for desert dwellers.

In recent years, the camel business has remarkably grown in the kingdom.

There are around 1.8 million camels with a market value of over SR50 billion in Saudi Arabia, according to official figures.