‘Within the kingdom, hajj operators are under heavy scrutiny and so are behaving in an appropriate way,’ says Karasik. Set up in 1963, Malaysia’s equivalent, Tabung Haji (the Pilgrims Fund), had assets of 73 billion ringgit (US$18.3bn) under management in 2017.‘Every country has a different way of splitting visa allocations,’ says Tutla.
Given the limit on how many pilgrims can be physically accommodated in Saudi Arabia during hajj, umrah is expected to be the focus of the promotion of tourism in the future. ‘It is difficult to work out the economic impact [of the hajj] as it is so all-encompassing, touching on almost every aspect of the economy – not just Mecca and Medina, but all of Saudi Arabia,’ says Wigley. “About 40 percent of this revenue comes from housing, 15 percent from gifts, 10 percent from food and the remainder from other services,” Katib said. Umrah attracted eight million pilgrims in 2017 and generated a further US$4bn for Saudi Arabia. According to Seán McLoughlin, senior lecturer in religion, anthropology and Islam at the University of Leeds in the UK, 75% of non-Saudi hajj pilgrims come from eight countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Egypt, Nigeria, Turkey (all with Muslim-majority populations) and India. Around 25,000 British Muslims go on the hajj every year, according to McLoughlin; in 2017, 221,000 journeyed from Indonesia and 179,000 from Pakistan, while the largest contingents from Africa came from Egypt (108,000) and Nigeria (79,000), according to ilmfeed.com.Contact information for your local officeMecca also hosts umrah – the non-obligatory pilgrimage that can be performed at any time of year. The hajj also has a spillover effect throughout the Middle East, for aviation services in particular.There has been a drive to professionalise the hajj over the past decade, says McLoughlin. In April this year, the chairman of Akbar Hajj Group Bangladesh fled the country after being accused of embezzling 500 million taka (US$5.9m) from 2,000 pilgrims.‘Muslims in the West are privileged as they can go on demand,’ he says, unlike in poorer countries, such as Indonesia, home to more than 220 million Muslims. Pilgrims (or hajjis, as they are called) usually arrive several days in advance and often stay on for a week or more, generating around US$8bn in revenues and making the hajj Saudi Arabia’s second largest income earner after hydrocarbons.Saudi Arabia sets so-called hajj quotas on the basis of an international Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) agreement, allowing 1,000 pilgrims per million of the total Muslim population in each sending country, although Saudi Arabia is flexible over the caps.
This year it starts on 19 August. Experts believe that revenue from pilgrimage will top $150 billion by 2022. ‘In total it is estimated at US$16bn, but it could be much more than that,’ says Mohsin Tutla, chairman of Hajj People, which organises the annual World Hajj and Umrah Convention (WHUC) in London.However, there are concerns about security and regulation.
This increases oversight of companies, so they are cleaning it up,’ says Tutla.Government policy changes on pilgrimage quotas have added to the difficulty of estimating average annual revenue for the kingdom from pilgrimage. He adds that only 10% of visas allocated to Indonesia go to the private sector – about 20,000, while 200,000 go to BPKH, so wealthy pilgrims use the private allocations. The responsibility for organizing this massive gathering, which occurs annually over an eight-day period between late August and early November, falls on the government of Saudi Arabia.