Saudi High Home Experience A guided tour inside a Saudi home

As part of its efforts to promote tourism to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Tourism Authority has launched ‘High Home Experience’ where tourists are welcomed in a Saudi house by a local host to discover authentic Saudi culture and cuisine. India Outbound was fortunate to be received by Abir Abusulayman, Saudi Arabia’s first female tour guide, who made a career switch at a time when the country had hardly begun looking at foreign tourists.

- Varsha Singh

For anyone, anywhere in the world, it is never too easy to give up a secure and well-paying job and do a complete career switch in a different line. Multiply the level of difficulty by at least 10 times for someone in a government job and approaching the age of retirement. The level of difficulty rises by zillion times further if the person is a woman in a conservative Islamic society as Saudi Arabia was nearly 15 years ago and the new career being adopted is in a sector that is still taking shape.

But all these challenges were not enough to deter Abir Abusulayman, who was employed as a teacher in the Ministry of Education of Saudi Arabia and who kicked up her secure job even in her 50s and decided to become the first female tour guide in Saudi Arabia. “At the age of 50, I decided to resign, taking early retirement from the Ministry of Education. Usually people don’t do this, because it is not easy that you take such a big step. I was exactly 49 years old. So the fact that I decided to take early retirement after working for 24 years, as a teacher and a supervisor, this was not common. I believe that not only in Saudi Arabia, even anywhere else in the world, no one leaves a good job so close to retirement and I had a very good position in the Ministry of Education, but I left just to start something that was very new,” Abusulayman tells India Outbound.

On a visit to Saudi Arabia at the invitation of Saudi Tourism Authority, India Outbound, along with a handful of other media representatives, had been invited by Abusulayman at her home for a ‘High Home Experience’ where visiting tourists go to the house of a local host and experience the life of an average resident of Saudi Arabia.