MAKKAH — A number of investors in the hospitality sector have expressed their resentment at the increasing trend of commercial sub-letting of Makkah hotels. Hotel owners rent their hotels to expatriates for a mere 5 percent return on the hotels income. This practice is more evident in Makkah's central area. They claim that their losses exceeded 60 percent last year due to this unfair competition, and blame the Ministry of Commerce, the Passports Directorate, and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiques for this widespread trend. The Dean of the Entrepreneurship Center of Um Al-Qura University in Makkah, Dr. Khalid Al-Matrafi, said that such form of cover-up or sub-letting is enabling expatriates to invest in or operate a business, which they are not allowed to. This also allows them to evade paying foreign investment fees. As per reports of the World Bank, such cover-up represents 20-30 percent of developing countries GDP. In Saudi Arabia, this represents SR 150-270 billion. Dr. Al-Matrafi added that statistics show that there are 8 million jobs in the private sector, but Saudi employment does not exceed 10 percent. This puts the Kingdom in second place of unemployment figures in Arab world. Foreign remittances reached SR 26 billion, second only to the United States, which has 11 times the number of the Kingdom's population. He charged that government efforts in combating this trend are very weak. Over 500 cover-up cases were reported to the Ministry of Commerce. Only 93 of these cases were referred to the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution. The director of Makkah Tourism Commission, Abdullah Al-Suwat, said that the commission is a monitoring body only. All suspected cover-up cases are reported to the Ministry of Commerce. He confirmed that commercial cover-up has a negative affect on tourism. He added that there should be concerted efforts to educate citizens on the hazard of encouraging cover-ups.
