Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Saudi Gazette report

JEDDAH — At least 120 women are getting ready to perform guide duties for Haj pilgrims this year, in addition to other duties adopted by the women’s division of the National Tawafa Establishment for Pilgrims of Arab Countries (ARBHAJ), which was awarded the “ISO” certificate twice in the past.

Supervisor of the women’s division, Lina Khashim, told Al Arabiya English that there were nine main duties that the “mutawwifs" or “guides” work on.

“They will work the whole year on communication to update the qualifications, education, information, and phone and accounts numbers. They would also receive the loan and subsidies requests, and deliver checks. Also the customer service employees respond to inquiries, transfer them to the concerned authority, register them electronically and report the problem,” she said.

“Work has been done to coordinate a training program to acquire the tourism and guidance license. A large number of mutawwifs were nominated to obtain a tourist guide license. The students of Umm Al-Qura University, Laureate University and the College of Technology were also trained to identify the reviews from all the institutions in order to match the housing for the Haj season,” Khashim added.

“The work is going on according to arrangements made by four main committees. The mutawwifs will work in the field service offices in a way that differs from the previous years performing such duties as surveys, call centers, hospitals or the field follow up with performance indicators assigned to them by other committees,” she said.

30% buses to be pulled out

Bassam Ghulman, the official in charge of transport at the Ministry of Haj and Umrah expected the number of buses transporting pilgrims to be cut by about 30 percent because of the shuttle services being used by four of the six major tawafa establishments.

"About 12,600 buses may be withdrawn from the fleet being operated by the General Syndicate of Cars for the transportation of pilgrims," he said.

New ACs for Mina tents

The air-conditioners in the tents in Mina have been replaced with advanced ones from Australia, which have certain specifications to cool the air for 24 hours a day.

A source at the project said as many as 21,000 new air-conditioners have been installed.

"As many as 45,600 new air conditioners have so far been installed in the tents in Mina during the project tenure of three years," he said.

The source said the new air-conditioners will keep the temperatures at the tents at 22-27 degrees Celsius.

He said there are more than 2,400 technicians working around the clock to maintain the air-conditioners and deal with any emergency situation.

Bangladeshi pilgrims

As many as 70,000 pilgrims from Bangladesh have arrived in the Kingdom on board 189 flights, according to Mohammed Maqsud Rahman, director of Haj affairs at the Bangladeshi Consulate.

He said a total of 126,000 pilgrims would be coming from his country for this year's Haj.

Source: http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/540313/SAUDI-ARABIA/120-female-guides-to-serve-pilgrims