Almesyaf or Summer Holiday Marriages, a modern phenomenon of the past several years, are increasing in frequency in the Kingdom. As part of the Summer Holiday Marriage arrangement, businessmen and businesswoman travel together during summer holidays as husband and wife, but end the marriage as soon as they return home.

Our respondents, both single climbers and married homemakers, affirm the existence of such ‘convenience unions’ and feel that their popularity is the result of the new-age ‘liberalized and modern’ Saudi woman. While our respondents did express some disapproval of individuals who seek such unions, the general reaction was one of resignation towards the behavior of men and surprise at the women who agree to these arrangements. “Saudi men have always been like that,” insisted many of our respondents. “Earlier it was women from other countries.

But what is shocking now is the trend for Saudi women to agree to such marriages”. However, the respondents are quick to point out that such deviant behavior is mostly popular among the spoiled rich and is not the norm for regular families. One reason for the popularity of Almesyaf among the rich is that the rich can afford to do it.

The compensation or Maher for contracting into a summer marriage falls in the range of 150,000 Saudi Riyal, plus a car and a luxurious villa. The businessmen hold to strict criteria when choosing their "travel wife”, namely a good oral and written command of the English language, an attractive appearance, and a willingness to attend mixed parties when abroad. Delving deeper, our respondents confirm (in hushed tones) that such marriages are also initiated by Saudi businesswomen, a rising constituency in the current Saudi market.

These businesswomen look for a husband to be their "Mehrem" during their travels abroad, the condition being that the husband gives her the permit to travel, accompany her, and allow her the freedom to move about once they are outside Saudi Arabia. In return, he is ‘allowed’ to live with her or she buys him a car, etc. Sheikh Ahmed Abdulqader, an Islamic consultant and a legal marriage officer in Saudi Arabia justies Summer Holiday Marriages as way to prevent Saudi men from pursuing prostitutes during their travel abroad.

In an attempt to woo big-spending GCC tourists, France recently initiated a program to increase awareness of its varied tourist attractions among high-end business travelers from GCC. In 2009, France attracted a little over 725,000 tourists from the Middle East and Near East. Speaking to Khaleej Times, Karim Mekachera, Director of Atout Franc, stated that in the past, mostly families, couples, and youth from Saudi Arabia and the UAE were targeted as key market constituents, with these groups accounting for the major share of the outbound tourists to France from the region. But now, while maintaining marketing efforts on leisure travel from these targeted constituencies, secondary inputs will also be directed at high-end business travelers. “Travelers from the region are high-end clientele for France’s tourism and this realization will be the base for our onward strategy to woo the affluent bitten by the travel bug from the Middle and Near East,” said Mekachera.

The 2010 Riyadh Travel Exhibition opened at Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Centre in June, with participation from about 200 local and international exhibitors from 30 countries, including Turkey, Thailand, Indonesia, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Cyprus and Kuwait. A significant number of Arab and international airlines attended the expo, as well as renowned hotel companies, and tourism and travel services providers from inside and outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A considerable number of governmental bodies, foreign missions and tourism activation agencies from all over the world also attended this event in a bid to opportune in on the growing Middle East travel market.

My financial travel companion

• Females cite ‘credit cards’ as their ideal nancial travel companion, probably because of their marathon ‘big ticket item’ shopping expeditions.

• Males, on the other hand prefer cash, finding it easier and faster than cards. However, some males also cite the inability to track spending as another reason to use cash, in contrast to Credit Cards which leaves a trail of their activities.