Responsible tourism in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is relatively new to tourism. Whilst the tourist board is spending on enticing advertising, coming here shouldn’t be based on surface impressions alone. Away from the PR campaigns, water shortages, human rights violations and tight restrictions on women are all part of the country’s identity. If you’ve decided to go, then go about your trip in the right way.

Home\Middle East\Saudi Arabia

Responsible tourism in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has poured money into tourism marketing since opening up to tourism in 2019. It launched its visa scheme with a glitzy campaign telling tourists to ‘be the first to witness a land of fascinating journeys’. In the first ten days after visas were released, 24,000 people entered the country on a tourist visa, and country appointed hundreds of tour guides overnight. Post-Covid the country aimed for a tourism boom. It’s stated aim is to attract 70 million tourists a year by 2030 – that’s more than currently visit the United States.

Things are changing very, very rapidly on the tourism scene as the country scrambles to establish hotels (Morocco-esque riads or lovely lived-in guesthouses are slower to appear on the scene). But you only have to look at destinations like Morocco and Tunisia to see how sudden tidal waves of tourists aren’t without problems.

What hasn’t changed, though, is the fact that Saudi Arabia is a deeply religious country with absolute rule, and an extremely conservative society. There is no free speech, there is active discrimination against women, and the country is the second largest producer of fossil fuels. At Responsible Travel we’ve only ever boycotted one country, and we don’t boycott Saudi Arabia – we sell holidays, not countries, after all. But don’t think people should visit with their eyes shut to Saudi’s unsavoury side.

This isn’t the only reason to hesitate: make no mistake, much of Saudi Arabia’s culture is inaccessible: the city of Mekka is straight-up off limits to non-Muslims. Medina became open to tourism in 2023. The stuff you can see, like ancient petroglyphs, are hard to find unless you’ve got an expert guide. It might be easier to visit Saudi, but it’s certainly not the easiest place to visit: not logistically, not morally, and not financially, either – a guide alone can cost $500 a day.

Rain begins with a single drop

– they said, as the driving ban lifted for Saudi women. But this is a country where it rarely rains.

People and culture

Gender segregation

Saudi Arabia practices strict gender segregation. Women have very little role in public life and their freedoms are curtailed by a strict guardianship system enforced by law. This means there are many actions – like marrying, or even leaving a domestic violence shelter, which they can’t perform without permission from their male guardian. There were some legal reforms in the late 2010s; women have been allowed to drive and enter sports stadiums since 2017, and travel abroad without seeking permission from their guardian since 2019. There have been a string of empowerment milestones since.

These recent steps look like real progression, but the reality is that they don’t amount to much at all. Just weeks before the driving ban was lifted, a number of women’s rights activists were imprisoned. The country still has no anti discrimination laws in place, so there’s really nothing stopping active discrimination against women in everyday life. Until 2016, the country’s religious police had the power to arrest offenders on the spot. People have no problem accosting women in the street if they appear to act out of line. And the gender pay gap is chasm-like: in The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap report of 2023, Saudi Arabia ranks 131st out of 146 surveyed countries.

As a tourist you’ll only experience a fraction of the problem. As part of enticing people to visit the country, rules like wearing an abaya, or of speaking to men who aren’t your relatives, have been lifted – but only for tourists. It’s very hard to get an objective view of what life is like in such a segregated society.

Human rights

Saudi Arabia has a terrible human rights record. Thanks to absolute rule and strict Wahhabi religious laws many personal freedoms are severely curtailed. The US State Departments 2004 report called the human rights record ‘poor overall with continuing serious problems’ whilst Amnesty International lists various occurrences that violate human rights, such as ‘torture as punishment’, ‘no free speech’ and ‘no protests’.

After North Korea and China, Saudi Arabia has the most deadly capital punishment system in the world, executing over 100 people a year. Deera Square in Riyadh (known, affectionately enough, as ‘Chop Chop Square’) is still the site of public executions on Fridays after prayer. The condemned are beheaded in front of a crowd. Drug-related offences are dealt with incredibly harshly, as are crimes as abstract as ‘disobeying the ruler’. A small number of Shi’ite Muslims live in Saudi Arabia, but there’s evidence that they have been heavily persecuted under the country’s religious exclusivism.

The world has condemned Saudi Arabia’s actions in Yemen. The two countries have been in conflict since 2015, but are in an unofficial truce. Human Rights Watch keeps count of unlawful airstrikes by a Saudi and UAE-led coalition on homes, hospitals and schools, which has killed thousands of innocent people in the process. War-induced famine is currently causing millions to starve. UNICEF have called it a ‘major humanitarian crisis’; over 18.3 million require humanitarian aid, there has been a mass cholera outbreak, and the UN’s World Food Programme reports that six million people are one step away from famine.

Migrant workers

Saudi Arabia relies heavily on guest workers from other countries – it has one of the largest immigrant populations in the world and they make up over 40 percent of the total population. You can guarantee it will be guest workers who develop tourist infrastructure. Filipino, Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Pakistani, and Indian workers have long made up much of the country’s workforce, especially in poorer-paid construction and service industry jobs, so there’s a real wage gap between migrant and Saudi demographics. The Saudi government has faced criticism from legal bodies and employers over how it treats foreign workers, Human Rights Watch has decried the ‘slavery-like conditions’ in which many of them live.

What you can do:
If you visit Saudi Arabia, pick a tour that allows you to meet with local women and visit business ventures run by women – female-led businesses have been on the rise, and from2018 women have been allowed to open businesses without permission from a guardian.

Environment

Water conservation

Saudi Arabia produces a lot of oil, but water is its biggest problem. Saudi Arabia uses a lot of water, over 24,000 million cubic metres a year, and 84 percent for agriculture. The country is 95 percent desert, and to meet its huge H2O overheads, it owns three of the world’s largest desalinisation plants (which each use an eye-watering amount of energy to run) and plunders its rapidly-depleting underground aquifers. In fact, Saudi Arabia consumes double the world average measure of water per person. Riyadh is by far the biggest problem, using 32 percent of the water supply, on average 337 litres per person per a day (the world average is closer to 130).7

The problem is set to get worse as the population grows, and of course, with the arrival of more tourists. Hotels are huge drain on water supplies – think of all those fluffy white towels in the laundry. The Red Sea Project, a massive tourism development, will use a battery plant to produce 56,000 cubic metres of water a day.

Fossil fuels

There are many reasons why Saudi Arabia isn’t considered a green destination. The desert is one, but its reliance on, and production of, 12 million barrels of oil a day is another. Oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s and it transformed the country from desert dead end to world power, with the world’s second largest reserve after Venezuela. Now, 40 percent of GDP comes from oil and it’s made Saudi Arabians very, very rich.

Burning fossil fuels is the single greatest cause of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the major culprit in the current climate crisis. Seeing the oil fields as you fly over the country can be sobering. The supply won’t last forever, which is why the government has started courting tourists. It’s Vision 2030 project aims to make its fledgling tourism industry worth 10 percent of its GDP. It’s not 40 percent, but it’s a start.

What you can do:
Saudi Arabia has rolled out the welcome mat to tourists, and this might be an acknowledgement that its oil is running out. For some, it’s hard to stomach visiting, and therefore condoning, Saudi Arabia’s stubborn marriage to fossil fuels.

The Red Sea

Compared to the oil-plundered Gulf Sea or the over-fished Mediterranean, the Red Sea is relatively unspoiled, supporting, according to a UN Environment Programme report, some 1,200 reef species. Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology noted that the north Red Sea’s corals were proving remarkably resistant to rising water temperatures and acidification.

Thanks to limited tourism, the Saudi Arabian coast is ‘one of the last untouched marine environments.’ But Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Project, announced in 2017, has big hopes for developing the area for tourism whilst creating a ‘net positive conservation impact’. The project promised to leave 75 percent of the destination’s islands undeveloped, with nine being designated as having ‘significant ecological value’. It also promised to be 100 percent carbon neutral.

But there’s big money involved. The project hoped to raise $2.7 billion in construction contracts, and court world’s leading hospitality firms, eventually attracting, according to Travel Weekly, one million tourists a year. On the other side of the Red Sea, built up resorts like Sharm el Sheikh show a coast ruined by tourism. It’s a stark warning that the Red Sea Project better heed.

What you can do:
Steer clear of big resorts, as these are the least water-efficient way to visit the country. Your money will go straight to multinationals, rather than local businesses. Instead look out for tours that feature homestays and smaller hotels, and tours that pay attention to Saudi Arabia's historic cultural attractions rather than glitzy modern ones.

Responsible tourism tips

Historically, Saudi Arabia has been closed to tourism. Business trips and pilgrimages have made up the majority of the travellers to its four international airports. The country started offering electronic Visas in September 2019. Saudi Arabia is a controversial country to visit. Booking a responsible holiday that supports local people, not governments, and historic culture, not glitzy new developments, can help you holiday with a clearer conscience. Saudi Arabia has a terrible track record for human rights (using the death penalty pretty indiscriminately), women’s rights and religious tolerance. LGBT travellers will, unfortunately need to be careful, as homosexuality is outlawed in the country. Homosexuality, adultery and sex outside marriage are all illegal. Heterosexual tourists are allowed to share a hotel room without presenting a marriage certificate, but this is a new development and the same privileges are not extended to anyone else. You cannot bring pork products or alcohol into the country. Both are illegal and you won’t be able to find either on sale. Foreign tourists need to dress conservatively at all times, covering their shoulders and knees. Women are currently exempt from wearing the full-length abaya required of citizens. You should heed FCO advice about no-go areas. In the south of the country, follow advice and stay away from the Yemen border.