Forecasting The Number of International Muslims Umrah Visitors in Makkah to 2030

This study was conducted to support the Saudi Vision 2030 to move beyond oil dependency by diversifying the sources of its income by increasing the tourists demand in the Kingdom, especially religious tourism which provides more money flowing continuously in the economy depending on its strategic location at the center of the world. This study aims to forecast the annual number of International Umrah visitors to Makkah from the period of 2020 to 2030, to achieve the 2030 Saudi Vision of serving 30 million visitors in 2030. Historical data of international Umrah visitors were collected for the past 33 years on an annual basis. This univariate time series of the annual number of international Umrah visitor has been studied and forecasted to predict the annual number of Umrah visitors for the next 11 years. Different forecasting techniques were used to identify the best technique among them to forecast the future demand. The best technique among those used in the study was ARIMA (2, 2, 2) model as best fitted model with the least residual measures of 9% MAPE. The results of the study indicate that annual number of international Umrah visitors will increase from 7.6 million in 2020 to 12.3 million in 2030. Annual increment percentage decreased from 11% in the historical data to 5% in the forecasted data affected by recent year’s growth due to the variability of issuing Umrah visas before 2030 vision’s announcement. It is clearly shown based on historical data and recent growth in Umrah visitors the 30 million visitors’ goal in 2030 will not be achieved. To achieve the set goal of international Umrah visitors by 2030 the Saudi government would need to increase the growth rate of issuing Umrah visa with an average of 12% approximately. In addition, lots of actions to attract more Umrah visitors such as aggressive marketing campaign, improve its housing 8 hospitality facilities, increase the capacity of its utility systems, and expand the overall infrastructure in the Holy places.