Ryad (AFP)

Empty religious sites, abandoned pilgrim tents, uninhabited hotels: Mecca, the holiest city in Islam, has lost its usual animation a few weeks before the hajj, which will be "very limited" due to the new coronavirus, at the risk of squeeze the Saudi economy.

"I hope that this year, thank God, I will be among the first pilgrims," ​​said AFP Marwan Abdulrahman, a Saudi living in Mecca.

Among the first, and especially among the only: to contain the pandemic of the new coronavirus, Saudi Arabia decided to accept only 1,000 faithful living on its territory for its pilgrimage at the end of July.

After having suspended in March the "omra", the small pilgrimage that takes place throughout the year, the kingdom is preparing to face an immense shortfall: the flow of pilgrims generates each year 10.6 Billions of Euro's.

However, the world's leading exporter of crude oil has already been hit hard by the fall in oil prices and the economic impact of containment ordered to fight the virus.

- "Zero sales, zero income" -

The gains generated by the hajj have given rise in recent years to a boom in real estate and trade around the holy places.

We build everywhere: shopping centers, apartments and luxury hotels, some with direct views of the Kaaba, a cubic construction in the center of the Great Mosque to which Muslims around the world turn to pray.

"Zero sales, zero income," said Ahmed Attia, a 39-year-old Egyptian expatriate who works for a travel agency in the holy city.

"We are not used to seeing Mecca empty. It feels like we are in a dead city. It is disastrous," he sighs.

Pilgrimages directly or indirectly finance hundreds of thousands of jobs in several sectors, from travel agencies to mobile phone companies, who have had to cut staff or cut wages.

The absence of pilgrims "aggravates the economic difficulties" of the kingdom, confirms to AFP Richard Robinson, analyst with Oxford Analytica.

Tourism, including religious tourism, is at the heart of the ambitious "Vision 2030" program of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which aims to increase the kingdom's non-oil revenues.

On Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that Saudi Arabia's GDP will contract by 6.8% this year due to low crude prices, its worst performance since the 1980s. It is 4.5 points below the IMF forecast for April.

- "Hard blow" -

In recent months, the BinLaden group, a construction giant regarded as a gauge of the health of Saudi companies, has not paid wages to thousands of workers, an industry source told AFP.

The discontent grows on social networks, where employees denounce these shortcomings while the company is behind a project of 13.3 billion euros in Mecca, composed of hotels and shopping centers which will overlook the Great Mosque.

The company is looking to charter planes to send many of its South Asian workers home, the source said. The company did not respond to AFP requests.

The Covid-19 disease crisis and the economic slowdown have hampered other ambitious tourism projects in the kingdom, after the fanfare of visa launches for tourists in 2019.

If the kingdom seeks to develop tourism outside religious sites, "the efforts of the Saudis always rest on the hajj", estimates Kristin Diwan, of the Arab Gulf States Institute, based in Washington.

"It is an important pillar of their non-oil revenues and not having it in this period of disruption in the black gold markets is a serious blow," she said.

© 2020 AFP