A recent report by Alpen Capital on the ‘Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Hospitality Industry’ revealed that the religious tourism sector in Saudi Arabia generated more than US$7 billion (AED25.70 billion) in 2009 from visitors to Muslim holy and pilgrimage sites, and projected visitor numbers to grow from over 12 million visitors in 2009 to 15 million visitors in 2013.

With Saudi Arabia being the seat of Islam, the country is investing heavily into the religious tourism industry. This is also evident with the Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Hajar Tower Makkah who has witnessed significant growth in the one year of operation. The hotel will be showcasing its offerings at the Arabian Travel Market 2011 being held in Dubai from May 2nd – 5th, 2011.

“Saudi Arabia has chalked out a development plan involving investment of almost AED98 billion (SAR 100 billion) to transform Makkah into a city with world-class infrastructure. With the large-scale tourism development underway, the Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Hajar Tower Makkah is well-equipped to cater to the growing number of pilgrims to the city. This year, we also plan is to implement marketing initiatives to further increase awareness in untapped markets in the African continent across Tunisia and Algeria,” said Omar Boujlid, General Manager of Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Hajar Tower Makkah.

The 41-storey 1,200 room Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Hajar Tower Makkah boasts beautiful, inspiring views of Islam’s holy sites of the Ha-ram Al-Sharif Mosque and the Kabaa Al-Mukrama. Comprising lavish suites, elegant rooms and furnished hotel apartments that offer guests – Hajj and Umrah pilgrims, travelers or businessmen – the hotel offers uncompromising adherence to the highest hospitality and Islamic compliance standards.

Concluding said, “ATM is an ideal platform to showcase our offerings to industry participants. Our objective is to raise the standards of service ex-cellence with our room offerings, food and beverage outlets and 32 different staff nationalities there to cater to varied groups of pilgrims.”