Saudi Gazette report TAIF — There has been an increase in the number of furnished apartments and hotels that do not fulfill the safety requirements in Taif. With the annual summer tourism season around the corner, owners of several residential buildings are eager to cash in on the huge inflow of tourists by turning these buildings into furnished apartments without fulfilling even the basic safety standards, according to a report in Makkah Arabic daily. Majdi Al-Humaidan, a citizen, said a large number of furnished apartments in Taif do not have emergency exits or fire escapes. “Most of these apartments are situated in congested residential districts and they have no frontal area to install a fire escape,” he said. Faris Al-Zahrani, another resident of the city, said landlords see the coming summer season as a golden opportunity to earn money through all possible ways. “Anyone who owns a residential apartment, irrespective of its size, fitness and location, wants to turn it into a furnished apartment or hotel in order to charge much higher rent. They do this without fulfilling most of the safety requirements and standards,” he said. Abdullah Al-Wiqdani said some apartment owners are greedy and their concern is only in earning a higher profit. “Reports about closure of some furnished apartments and tourism shelters for violations do not deter them from committing the same violations. These landlords usually act to do something only after they had to face penal actions,” he said. Abdullah Al-Sawat, director general of Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) in Taif, said the SCTA concluded memorandum of cooperation with the concerned government agencies like the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Civil Defense in order to ensure the required standards of the hospitality sector. “As part of this, a uniform regulation for granting license to tourism service providers, including hotels and furnished apartments, has been formulated. Accordingly, the licensing procedure start swith the SCTA verifying whether the facility is fulfilling the norms for submitting applications. The applications are then transferred to the municipality to ensure the building's fitness and the Civil Defense to check the safety regulations and basic facilities required for licensing,” he said, adding that SCTA will issue license only after successful completion of all these procedures. Al-Sawat said a license would be issued only after the municipality and the Civil Defense gave clearance. On his part, Col. Nasser Al-Sharif, spokesman of Civil Defense, said his department is carrying our periodic inspection visits to ensure that all furnished apartments in Taif are complying with the safety requirements. “We noted some violations on the part of landlords and operators of hotels and furnished apartments, and in such cases we serve warning notice and slap fines on the violators,” he said. "We are giving these facilities grace periods to meet the safety requirements before the summer tourism season and if they failed to fulfill the conditions within the stipulated time, we will take further punitive measures like disconnecting electricity as a step prior to their closure,” he added.
