People coming to the Kingdom to perform the Umrah this year are expected to inject some SR14.8 billion into the local economy, according to the Haj and Umrah Committee. Saad Bin Jameel Al-Qurashi, Deputy Chairman of the committee, has said that more than SR14.8 billion will be brought into the Kingdom's coffers, calculated on the basis that each Umrah performer spends more than SR4,000. With the Umrah season already under way and continuing until the middle of the month of Shawal (September), over 39 Saudi Umrah companies have started marketing their Umrah programs abroad, targeting the four million people expected to perform Umrah this year. Companies have begun their Umrah programs in Makkah and Madina and also through 2000 foreign agencies in more than 150 Arab and Islamic countries to reach an estimated 3.7 million Umrah performers. Al-Qurashi said that companies started promoting their programs through their foreign agents at the beginning of the Umrah season while also organizing shows to promote their programs within and outside the Kingdom, the most recent being in Syria and Turkey. An official source at the Ministry of Haj has said, meanwhile, the ministry had drawn up a program to eliminate illegal overstayers. The source noted that the overstay rate from the last Umrah season was around 0.5 percent and is expected to reach zero this year.
