Dubai: The General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT) announced that a record 24,715,307 people performed Umrah in Saudi Arabia in 2022. In the same period, 926,062 internal and external pilgrims performed Hajj.
GASTAT revealed these statistics as part of two reports on Hajj and Umrah for the year 2022/1443 Hijri.
According to these reports, of the total Umrah performers, 9,517,829 performed Umrah only once in 2022.
The data showed a breakdown of the total Umrah performers with 8,372,429 external and 16,342,878 internal performers. The number of male external Umrah performers was 3,700,785 (44.20 per cent), while female external performers totaled 4,671,644 (55.80 per cent). On the other hand, the internal male Umrah performers reached 11,033,994 (67.52 per cent), while female performers represented 32.48 per cent.
Saudis accounted for 6,642,881 (40.65 per cent) of the internal Umrah performers, while non-Saudis accounted for 9,699,997 (59.35 per cent). The month of April recorded the highest number of Umrah performers, reaching 5,479,637. The Mecca Region saw the highest number of internal Umrah performers, at 10,270,637.
The Hajj report revealed that 84.4 per cent of the total pilgrims in 2022 were external, amounting to 781,409, who arrived via various ports. Internal pilgrims made up 15.6 per cent, totaling 144,653. The number of internal male and female pilgrims was 77,776 and 66,877, respectively, while the external male and female pilgrims numbered 421,999 and 359,410, respectively.
According to the reports, 94.7 per cent of the total number of pilgrims arrived by air, 4.5 per cent by land, and sea transport recorded the lowest percentage at 0.8 per cent.
Over 236,000 male and female employees were part of the labor force serving the pilgrims, with the general services sector contributing 73,556 employees, the medical services sector 26,392, and the transportation services sector 19,421. The communications sector added 3,728 workers.
Medical facilities and teams within Mecca, Medina, and the Holy Sites reached 900, providing emergency and hospitalization services to more than 22,000 pilgrims. More than 1,904 pilgrims also received services like cardiac catheterization, dialysis, and other surgical operations. Vaccination campaigns for pilgrims and workers resulted in a total of 120,423 medical vaccines.
