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✍ Islam Zween
For several years, we have actually tracked the development in the variety of Umrah pilgrims showing up in Saudi Arabia as the clearest sign of how the Umrah market is establishing. With the target of 30 million pilgrims from abroad by 2030the number itself has actually ended up being a simple yardstick of success.
While checking out market information this week, I was struck by the reality that 18.03 million Umrah pilgrims got here from abroad in 2025while 15.03 million visas were provided, of which just 12.44 million were Umrah visas. The space matters, since it indicates we are not discussing 18 million consumers who all purchased their journey the exact same method.
Some purchased a complete bundle from a travel representative in their home nation; some entered upon a various visa and set up the journey themselves; and others scheduled through an international platform, a Saudi business or the Nusuk platform.
The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah itself validates that carrying out Umrah is no longer limited to Umrah visa holders, and is now allowed on traveler, check out and work visas.
These various paths eventually feed into the very same headcount, producing a single figure for pilgrim numbers, their monetary behaviour varies essentially. The money streams that accompany pilgrims’ costs do not go through the very same circulation channels.
Rather, the financial worth is divided amongst worldwide reservation platforms, conventional representatives and direct company, depending upon the path each pilgrim selected to get in by.
The Egyptian market is the clearest example of this structural shift.
In 2024some 2.76 million Egyptians carried out Umrah, yet just 30% of them (about 841,000entered upon a devoted Umrah visa, according to the Pilgrim Experience Program report.
A noteworthy shift followed in 2025when the variety of Umrah visas provided to Egyptians leapt to about 1.37 millionup 58% on the modified 2024 figures released in the 2025 report.
In the beginning look, this appears like substantial development in the Egyptian market, however that reading might be incorrect provided the significant regulative modifications that year.
Chief amongst them was the requirement for Umrah business and abroad representatives to sign up agreements and lodging plans on the Nusuk Masar platform as a prerequisite for visa issuance, along with tighter Egyptian guidelines directing Umrah journeys through certified business.
The case for this regulative description is reinforced by the relative decrease in the overall variety of Egyptian Umrah pilgrims in 2025according to the exact same analytical series.
This indicates pilgrims changing from one visa classification to another instead of an increase of brand-new arrivals, which restricts how conclusively the present information can develop the nature of this development.
This is not a minimal analytical observation. It is the analytical structure of our research study on the economics of the Umrah sector, since it resumes a crucial concern about how the marketplace’s effectiveness and development should truly be determined: is it the outright increase in the variety of individuals carrying out the rites, or the much deeper shifts in how they get in the nation, how they book and where their costs goes?
Paradoxically, this shift, if validated, suggests a relocation into the licensed-agent channel instead of out of it.
An Egyptian’s Umrah visa goes through a certified Egyptian travel business and after that a Saudi Umrah business on the Nusuk Masar platform, whereas those showing up on see visas primarily organized their journeys outside this channel.
This ends up being even more essential when we take a look at which business take advantage of market development. For Jabal Omar Development, what matters most is that the pilgrim reaches Makkah, remains in among the business’s hotels, and the space rate they pay.
For Seera Group, the advantage depends more on the services that go through the group’s business, whether reservation, lodging or transportation. The very same pilgrim might for that reason belong to need development at both business, however the profits they entrust each is various.
This does not always suggest the travel representative will vanish as direct reservation broadens in the markets where it is offered. There will still be individuals who require somebody to organize their journey, or to assist them alter a reservation, get a refund or resolve an issue while taking a trip.
What is most likely to alter is the worth of that intermediation, and just how much pilgrims will want to spend for it once they can purchase a majority of the journey themselves. This, in my view, is what makes the 30 million target more fascinating than just striking the number.
Thirty million pilgrims will produce higher need for hotels, flights, transportation and lots of other services, however they will not always be thirty million consumers for the marketplace as we have actually understood it.
We might reach the target while, along the method, the business that win the reservations, and each celebration’s share of what pilgrims invest, alter.
Saudi Arabia is currently on course for 30 million Umrah pilgrims, however the number alone will not inform us how huge the marketplace remains in the method we when envisioned.
The concern is no longer simply the number of individuals carried out Umrah, however how they came, how they reserved, just how much they invested and, most significantly, who wound up with their cash?
Image a pilgrim in Cairo preparing her Umrah. She might purchase a plan from a certified representative down the roadway. She might schedule a hotel near the Grand Mosque on a worldwide travel site and her flight elsewhere.
Are Saudi hotels purchasing need or developing it?
Saudi Arabia’s hospitality sector is broadening at a speed that has couple of precedents in emerging tourist markets. New supply is going into throughout city and resort locations, worldwide brand names are deepening their footprint, and visitor targets embedded in the National Tourism.
Reassessing Growth in Saudi Arabia’s Ultra-Luxury Hospitality
Having bigger hotels in Saudi Arabia’s ultra-luxury hospitality sector does not always cause greater revenues. As hotels grow and more complicated, their worth can in fact reduce. This raises a crucial concern for financiers: at what point does increasing size enhance effectiveness.
Saudi Tourism
As the 2024 forecasts of hotel tenancy in the Saudi tourist sector are anticipated to go beyond 70%, the kingdom requires to equal increasing need of food packs through imports.
E! illustration/Urban Outfitters
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