Jeddah hotel occupancy falls to 30% this Ramadan

A member of Saudi Arabia’s National Tourism Council has revealed that tourist activity the coastal city of Jeddah has decreased by up to 75 percent this Ramadan, with hotel occupancy currently at 30 percent, reports the Saudi Gazette.

Ibrahim Al-Rashid, reports the paper, blamed the late start of the summer vacation for the slump on hotel performance, with the majority of Saudi and Gulf nationals who make up the majority of Jeddah’s tourists preferring to visit Makkah and Madinah at this time of the year.

“We expected a 25 percent decrease, but what we have is a 75 percent decrease,” Ibrahim Al-Rashid reportedly said.

The Saudi daily goes on to report that KSA Prince Abdullah Bin Saud Bin Mohamed, chairman of the tourism committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told a local daily that while it is too early to say that tourism has slumped this Ramadan, he did confirm that Shaaban (June-July 2013) had seen a 20 percent decrease in hotel and short-stay apartment occupancy rates.

The prince reportedly identified weak marketing for Jeddah’s annual tourism events as the main culprit behind the dip, while also blaming the Jeddah municipality and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) for failing to adequately promote tourism in the city.

Prince Abdullah also asserted that Jeddah does not have an adequate number of hotels while also blaming the SCTA for failing to encourage Saudi investment in the local hotel business.

Bandar Al-Fuheid, head of the Arab Organization for Tourism, reportedly claimed that the ongoing unrest elsewhere in the Arab world has scared tourists away.

Al-Fuheid claimed that the Saudi government is spending more on external tourism than it is on internal tourism, adding that his organization was working with a number of countries to draft more balanced tourism budgets.