TWO things certain to ruin a tourist destination are bad press and bad word-of-mouth. Travelers' tales of arriving in Jeddah and finding no vacant hotel rooms is the genesis of both. Kingdom authorities are admirably exploring various methods for opening up the country to foreign visitors and refining the mechanisms that are already in place for domestic tourism. Jeddah, with its easy-going ways, the Red Sea and the historical downtown area is bound to be a major destination. Indeed, it already has become one for domestic vacationers. But if visitors are arriving and finding hotel rooms and furnished apartments booked up, some changes have to be made. First of all, visitors will have to learn to make reservations well in advance of their arrival. To guarantee that a room be held, visitors will have to become accustomed to using a credit card and local innkeepers will have to equip themselves with the ability to process credit card transactions. A number of information systems need to be established. A website dedicated to Jeddah (or Riyadh or Madinah, etc.) lodging should be established and all facilities offering short-term accommodation should be required to register with the website and provide daily updates of their vacancies. A publication should also be made available that lists all hotels and furnished apartment houses in the city so that travelers are not reduced to driving around aimlessly in the hopes that they will come across a facility with a vacancy. Lastly, anyone who has ever arrived by train in Amsterdam or Venice is well aware of the service offered at those cities' train stations. Clerks there will provide you with vacancy information for city hotels and book a room for you if you request. These services are not infallible but they are a great help to arriving strangers who need a place to leave their bags while they tour the city or search out somewhere else to stay. The tourism industry should become a great asset to the Kingdom, providing revenue and jobs. The better the infrastructure of the industry, the greater will be its success. __
