Tourism is the main pillars for the sustainable development, and countries seek to achieve a clean development free from environmental pollution, and this is what was achieved by religious tourism, a lot of countries where there are places of religious value rely on the tourism , as an important resource for the economic development , and among these countries is Saudi Arabia, where the Hajj and Umrah are active, noting that the visits and rituals in Iraq, which if were exploited properly and had its right conditions, it would give income to contribute to the supplement of the treasury of these countries, and advancing the development, and contribute to the reduction of unemployment, and activates the transport sector, and the sector of hotels and restaurants and even the sector of craft industries, and maybe we can compare the effect of visits and rituals in Iraq to the seasons of Hajj and Umrah in Saudi Arabia.
Economists believe that the pilgrimage season is of great importance in the supplement of the public treasury of States; as it makes a recovery in all economic sectors in Saudi Arabia, especially in Mecca and Medina, so a pilgrimage for traders in general and merchants of Mecca in private is an important season which bring to them the highest income after Ramadan season, noting that the revenues of Saudi Arabia from the Hajj and Umrah in the year 2012 amounted more than 62 billion riyals , the equivalent of $ 16.5 billion, the British Economist magazine reported that this is an amount equal to about 3% of the GDP of Saudi Arabia; which confirms that the pilgrimage season achieves a huge profitable trade, and economically important resource.
a study published by the University of the “Umm Al-Qura” Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (CNN) indicates that the pilgrimage leaves a great impact on the the level of total spending through the revenues obtained by sectors working in the pilgrimage of institutions and companies, and transportation and shops , as spending of pilgrims here represents an income for these sectors, which contribute to increase the aggregate demand.
The newspaper quoted about “Nadia Baeshen” an economic expert and Dean of the College of Business administration , North Jeddah, “that if the economic revenues of Hajj(pilgrimage) were exploited properly and in the best use and well organized and more than it is now, the economic income for the Hajj and Umrah would be equal to oil income being it contributes to undertake for the projects of critical infrastructure of the country such as airports and ports of the Meccan Sanctuary , trains and bridges to serve the pilgrims and relieve congestion on the one hand and increase the number of pilgrims on the other.
The Saudi government has realized the real importance of revenue of Hajj and Umrah so it has placed Hajj and Umrah seasons within the agenda of vision of Saudi Arabia 2030 and supervised by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman , which requires from the budget to give up for addiction to oil , which rely on it heavily, which is behind the adverse effects of successive economic crises of Saudi Arabia following a drop in global energy prices.
But with regard to Iraq , it is a tourist country where all the elements of tourism available but religious tourism today represents the main pillar for tourism in it – in terms of exponentially among Muslims, especially to those who follow the Shiite sect in the world, and the holy city of Karbala represents the first destination of tourist religious attraction to them, where millions annually visit the holy thresholds in it, which is reflected on the economic aspect to increase the income , and the expansion of employment opportunities in tourism investment.
and the religious tourism affect the development of infrastructure projects, and the general level of prices, and the tourist demand was measured to the numbers of visitors and specifically to the number of nights stay. The estimated number of foreign visitors up to 1500- 2000 visitors a day , mostly from Iran and that this figure could rise when achieve security and stability in Iraq for up to 7000-10000 daily visitors, and concerning the domestic tourism demand is present throughout the year that its peak reaches to( 3-4 ) million visitors in days of Ashura and Arba’een visit( forty) of Imam Hussein bin Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) and the demand for tourism in the city of Karbala was risen for the following reasons:
– the existence of complete freedom to practice a rituals ,
-and the lower of the exchange rate of Iraqi dinar , which attracts visitors from neighboring and distant countries,
-and the availability of deep spiritual motive to visit the holy sites even without the availability of means of tourism marketing,
and these factors and others can be a equation to be used to build a statistical model to predict the size of demand for tourism in the city of Karbala .
But to identify the size of the tourism income is very difficult, “so that the figures of Central Bureau of Statistics for the tourism sector are not available because the sector is not independent and being a part of the sector of wholesale and single trade making it very difficult to separate between them .
Since the religious tourism is an important source for the support of balance of payments and spend on it in foreign currency to import inputs used by the tourist facilities, noting that the outcome of the difference between revenue and spending is to decide the role of tourism in the balance of payments. In case of outweigh of the the income , there is a surplus in the currency and created a positive role ,and in the case of outweigh of the spending , there is a deficit and created a negative role.
It is possible to be an important role for tourism in the Iraqi national income because of its attractive elements, in addition to the taxes and fees that can be imposed on projects of tourism and it is the source of the state budget, and provide good business opportunities within the limits of tourism sector .
as well as the tourism contributes to the equitable distribution of income and development projects in remote areas and small and large cities, particularly the projects of roads and transport and services such as markets, hotels, restaurants and tourist facilities and other projects.
in spite of all this, there are Facts absent from religious tourism in Iraq, after the issuance of Murshed of Iran Ali Khamenei fatwa to convert pilgrimage of Iranians to Karbala instead of Mecca and the Iranian government said that its citizens will not perform Hajj this year because of what it described as “restrictions” imposed by Saudi Arabia on them .. but the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah of Saudi Arabia put the responsibility on the Iranian Organization of Hajj and visit for inability of Iranians to perform the Hajj this year . This gives as natural indicators of economic recovery of Iraq!
But the precise figures for the true numbers of visitors were not given noting that there is a big difference between the numbers that the Iraqi Interior monitored and what is announced by the Iranian side,
and despite the presence of ports (Mehran) and (Czabh) and (Shalamcheh), in addition to Zurbatiyah port , which are located in the border southern provinces with Iran, many of the cases of illegal entry were occurred and loaded with prohibited materials and stolen goods noting that the drugs comes in the first place for the smuggling from Iran to Iraq.
the former minister of Iraqi interior Ministery said hundreds or even thousands of Iranians infiltrated to Iraqi territory across the southern provinces, and others entered in an official way for the visit, but they chose to stay , despite the end of their visa expires.
and the illegal stay and immigration had led to the spread of drugs and dealing with it and break the labor market, especially that the Iranians are working at wages much lower than the Iraqis.
for their part , hoteliers in Karbala accused the Iranian body of pilgrimage and visit and its partners to control of the city and imposed tough conditions in respect of sheltering and housing of Iranian visitors, and having licenses from the Iraqi Interior granted under an agreement with private security companies to ensure the protection of Iranian visitors.
According to sources , the Iranian regime seeks to run Iranian companies in the holy cities for purpose of economic control on it in which the economists considered that as a strong blow to the Iraqi economy.
observers noted that the Iranian government is trying hard to control the religious tourism in Iraq because they bring to it a lot of money competing oil money.
there was a political partner company named Inc. (shamsah), the Iranian company – controlled all about Iranian visitors who arrive in Karbala, which their number reached to about 2,500 visitors a day. ”
the owner of the hotel of Iraqi nationality , explains that” the Iranian tour company gets most of the profits from tourism revenue and especially hotels “and asks with a sigh , ” Is it conceivable that the hotel owner provides three meals a day and bear the expenses of electricity, water and laundry vs. (24) dollars a day and it was given to him by Shamsah company for every visitor . ” Noting that ” the Iranian body of Hajj and visit do not pay to us our sums just in every three months …”.
It is clear that the religious tourism sector in Iraq is subjected to exploitation by companies that play the role of intermediary between the visitor and the owners of hotels, where they pay to them small amounts, compared to the expected amounts received by these companies from visitors, and thus make a profit and improve their financial position on an ongoing basis , while the hoteliers were threatened by the loss, as well as for the start of paying these amounts are carried out after periods of three months , from the end of the visit, and in payments, which may cause difficulty in the financial position of the owners of these hotels.
Further to the above , it was noted that visits and rituals in Iraq are similar in terms of religious tourism conditions, and its components with the Hajj and Umrah, and here we mean the circumstances of this economic activity and its elements, in terms of booking hotels and restaurants to use, and the transport sector, as well as shopping … etc,
However, the advantage accruing to investors in the Hajj and Umrah, appear larger, because of the breadth and diversity of consumers who are performing Hajj and Umrah , from those who are doing visits and rituals, this is the first , but there are other factors that can not be overlooked, such as the case of direct payment to the investor of Hajj and Umrah, which makes him in a more secure financial position from the one who invest in this sector in Iraq ,
The competition between intermediaries in the Hajj and Umrah wider than among those who work in the visits and rituals field in Iraq in which the situation sometimes could be described as it is closer to a monopoly, as well as the role of legislation and laws and their application and flexibility have influential role, noting that in Hajj and Umrah , the investor ‘ has the ability of the management of his investment according to the mechanism of supply and demand, while in Iraq , the investor is more restrictive in its management of the investment because of the political and social circumstance from one side as well as to narrow and the lack of diversity in the nature of the intermediaries who deal with them, in addition to the indirect effects such as laws of residence, conditions of entry to the country and the commitment for periods of specific stay, as well as limitations of working on tourists , and how to do so or not.
therefore, if the right conditions are available for the religious tourism in terms of encouragement , support and protection of it in Iraq, compared to Saudi Arabia, it would have a more positive contributions to the supplement of the treasury of the Iraqi state, leading to the promotion of the rise of development indicators in Iraq , and ease the burden on the oil sector, upon which it depends mainly now, as if a suitable climate is available for the
religious tourism activity , it will have a direct correlation to the growth and creation of small and medium enterprises, which have a direct positive impact in reducing the levels and rates of unemployment and reduction of it, thereby contributing to improving the standard of living of individuals.
Shatha Khalil
Translated by : Mudhaffar Alkusairi
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies