7 - 13 February 2002
Issue No.572
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 7 - 13 February 2002 Issue No.572 |
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Dealing with the mundane
Will new regulations set up by the Egyptian government safeguard the faithful from fraud and harm? Rehab Saad looks at the changes in this year's hajj and omra preparations
For so holy a journey, the hajj, or pilgrimage, involves an incredible amount of worldly concerns. There are visas and accommodation to procure, exorbitant fees to grapple with, problems with fluctuating exchange rates and the actual perils of the journey. An unreliable travel agency could mean poor accommodation -- or none at all. Road accidents, like the bus accident that killed 52 Egyptian pilgrims returning from the omra (a smaller, off-season pilgrimage), loom large in people's memory. The accident, on 14 December, took place at the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba.
But this year's hajj season, taking place this month, is going to be different, Egyptian officials say. New regulations have been set up to guarantee that pilgrims are safe and adequately attended to. Following the omra accident in Jordan, Egypt's Ministry of Tourism put into effect measures to supervise tour buses more vigilantly.
According to Minister of Tourism Mamdouh El-Beltagui, all buses headed for the hajj or omra will be thoroughly checked. Companies owning the buses will be carefully reviewed. Beltagui noted that the 250 licensed bus drivers who will be making the trip will be submitted to a full medical checkup to verify their physical and psychological condition. Moreover, a comprehensive training course is being offered to help acquaint drivers with international rules and road signs. Perhaps most importantly, each bus will have two drivers to ensure that passengers are not endangered by a tired driver.
After extensive consultations between the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and the Saudi authorities, Saudi Arabia has agreed that Egyptian buses will use the Al-Dorra entry point on the Saudi- Jordanian border instead of the entry point of Hallet Ammar, which is regarded as extremely dangerous. Ministry of Tourism Under-Secretary Hassan Gamaleddin, who is supervising the pilgrimage trips, said that the Saudi authorities also agreed to another proposal that Egyptian pilgrims use the Safaga- Daba road, which could trim a full 24 hours off the three-day trip to Saudi Arabia.
Road regulations are not the only changes. A number of measures concerning accommodation, transport and the execution of itineraries have been implemented by the Ministry of Tourism. Travel agencies which failed to meet the new regulations would incur "severe penalties," El-Beltagui warned. According to Elhamy El-Zayyat, head of the Egyptian Association for Travel Agencies (EATA), penalties could mean the closure of the company and the withdrawal of its licence.
Travel agencies organising the hajj and omra trips deal with some 25,000 pilgrims, 18,000 of whom travel by air. Another thousand travel by boat, the rest by road. Horror stories of pilgrims who are let down by their travel agency -- either not receiving the accommodation they were promised or finding themselves wandering the streets of Mecca -- are well known to Egyptian authorities, and the ministry has taken steps to ensure that it does not happen. "No travel agency will be allowed to breach the regulations stipulated for hajj this year," insists El-Beltagui. "We are adopting codes that guarantee the rights of both pilgrims and travel agencies."
Those who are sceptical need only look to the number of accredited travel agencies this year. Last year, some 1,200 agencies were allowed to organise hajj trips. That number fell to 683 this year once the new regulations were enforced. Based on the trips organised for the last omra season, 17 travel agencies who violated the new rules and codes were shut down.
A delegate from the Ministry of Tourism will soon be travelling to Saudi Arabia in order to check up on travel agencies and determine whether they are living up to their duties in Mecca and Medina. This delegate will make sure that accommodation is appropriate and that the distance from the hotels to the Haram (the sanctuary surrounding the Kaaba) does not exceed a set distance: 600 metres for pilgrims coming by air, 1,200 for those coming by boats and 1,400 for those coming by road. This year, according to Gamaleddin, more than 75 per cent of pilgrims will be staying in hotels that are only 200 metres from the Haram. "We refused 25 places this year that are not compatible with our specifications," Gamaleddin said.
Gamaleddin stresses that Egyptians can do their part in making the hajj a smoother, safer process. Each year, he said, the Ministry of Tourism asks people only to deal with agencies that are given licences to organise hajj and omra trips to ensure that the process can be monitored. Both the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Social Affairs also organise hajj trips.
But even beyond the issue of proper supervision, both pilgrims and agencies grappled with factors outside the control of the Ministry of Tourism: the fluctuation of the exchange rate of the Egyptian pound. Mamdouh Salman, a travel agent, said that dealing with the Egyptian pound, which lost value against the Saudi riyal, caused him to lose some LE100,000. "My company is organising the hajj trip for 100 people. Because of the currency exchange rates, I carried the loss of LE1,000 for each person because I had to pay the Saudi authorities in riyals," he said.
In order to avoid such problems, some travel agents required that the fees be paid in riyals, admits Hisham Amin, another travel agent. This meant that the cost of organising the pilgrimage went up for most people. "There is no increase in the charge for hajj," says Amin. "We just asked our clients to pay in riyals, because the hotels in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Saudi authorities require us to pay in riyals. This way, we [travel agencies] are not affected by the fluctuation in the currency exchange rate, which could ruin our business."
"Any foreign authority or company usually asks us to pay in their own currency," explained Amin. "They don't care about currency exchange rates and how it could affect us. It's not their problem." But many Egyptians complained of the practice. Because so many travel agencies wanted their fees in riyals, the price was not only higher, but there was a marked shortage of the Saudi currency in the Egyptian market.
ElATA's El-Zayyat pointed out another serious problem: securing an entry visa. "Most travel agencies make early preparations for the hajj by paying 25 per cent of the expenses of the trip for each person for the hotels and the tickets. Sometimes a person cannot get the entry visa and has to cancel the trip. This causes a big loss to the Egyptian travel agency, because the money it paid is not refundable. This does not only cause a financial loss for the agency, but it also damages the company's image in the eyes of its clients," he said.
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