Under the instructions of the Ministry of Haj and Umrah, an app was tested this Hajj season to know the best time pilgrims wished to perform tawaf Al-Ifada, according to Makkah daily newspaper on Tuesday.
Tawaf Al-Ifada is the last formal rite of Hajj, in which pilgrims visit the holy Kaaba for the farewell circumambulation.
This new step was aimed at organizing the grouping of the pilgrims...
Malaysia is on the right track to realise its smart cities vision under the 11th Malaysia Plan 2016-2020 (11MP), information and communications technology (ICT) leader NEC Corporation of Malaysia Sdn Bhd (NEC Malaysia) said.
“In fact, we are already living in a smart city when we start using a mobile application to pay for parking,” Managing Director Chong Kai Wooi said.
He said...
An examination of nearly $41 billion in travel bookings for the fall found that travelers were making flight arrangements to some surprising destinations.
Ahead of the holiday travel season, the luxury travel and trend forecaster Virtuoso discovered that Americans continue to flock to perennial favorites like Europe.
However, Virtuoso’s data — unveiled during this month’s...
Malaysia is on target to achieve its foreign tourist arrival goal of 33.1 million in 2018.
Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Datuk Mohammadin Ketapi said there were 8.47 million international arrivals in the first quarter of the year, with a marked increase in visitors from China (37.2 per cent), India (21.2 per cent), South Korea (26.5 per cent), Canada (28 per cent) and the United...
The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) praised the services provided by the Health Ministry to Hajj pilgrims, and the efforts exerted to care for them and maintain their health.
In a tweet on his official Twitter account, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus congratulated the ministry on the successful Hajj season, describing its work as “exceptional.”
Earlier, Health Minister...
Two million Muslims gather in Saudi Arabia this week for the hajj as the annual pilgrimage becomes increasingly hi-tech with apps to help the faithful navigate Islam’s holiest sites.
This year the hajj comes with the ultra-conservative kingdom witnessing an unprecedented pace of change, finally ending a ban on women driving while remaining firm in the face of any dissent.
One of the...
The number of pilgrims in Saudi Arabia passed two million on Saturday, Saudi security chiefs said, as the country finished preparations for the annual Hajj pilgrimage to begin on Sunday.
A final tally will be announced at the beginning of Eid Al-Adha on Tuesday, said Interior Ministry security spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki.
The pilgrims have flown in from almost every country in the...
Malaysia’s Hajj Pilgrimage Fund, Tabung Hajji, has decided to kick-start a massive cleanliness campaign among Malaysian pilgrims during Hajj, as a step to ensure the tents in Mina are “the cleanest among other nations.”
Tabung Hajji will head the massive “gotong-royong” exercise for the first time in the tent city of Mina during Masyair. “Gotong-royong” has a strong cultural root in Malaysian...
The British newspaper The Guardian revealed on Friday that British tour operators have revealed an increase in non-European tour bookings, led by Egypt, expecting an 80% increase in British tourism to Egypt by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Thomas Cook explained that it now has the largest number of customers returning to Egypt, which helps in making Egypt a “great destination in the...
Executives at Booking Holdings said on Thursday that “approximately 50 percent” of paying customers now come directly to its brands.
The Norwalk, Connecticut-based company had not previously drawn attention to this direct booking figure.
In comments during a second-quarter earnings call, chief financial officer David Goulden defined “direct” bookings as any customer who books without having...