On top of that, they come cheap, like many people from Egypt did. If I understand this correctly, you can buy a kind of "Hadjj package" with hotel room, access to AC'ed facilities during the day, food and - most important - drink, and even medical supervision (or at least easy access to medical services). But of course you have to pay for this.

So it is cheaper just to get a tourist visum and do everything outside those guard rails. With the results that this years Hadjj produced. A bunch of Egyptian travel agencies sold the cheaper variant, and then left their customers without any real support inside Saudi Arabia.

And it will only get worse.