Jordan battles to rescue its vital tourism industry

Tourism in 2014 was the country's second highest earner, but with wars raging in neighbouring Syria and Iraq, revenue from the sector is becoming a trickle.

Tourists ride around the ancient city of Petra in Jordan. Raad Adayleh/AP Photo

AMMAN // Jordan’s tourism industry, one of its main money-earners, is being killed off by regional conflicts.

A haven of peace surrounded by war, Jordan is turning to contingency measures to try to revive its tourism industry which is suffering because of the raging violence in neighbouring Iraq and Syria.

Tourism in 2014 contributed 14 per cent of the kingdom’s GDP, to the tune of US$4.4 billion (Dh16.16bn), the second highest earner after remittances from expatriates.

But the flow of tourism revenue is becoming a trickle.

“For three days I haven’t had a tourist come in here,” said 30-year-old Mohammed at his souvenir shop in central Amman.

“Things are slowing down, and each year seems to be worse than the last.”

The Hashemite kingdom has no shortage of acclaimed wonders, both natural and man-made.

Its rose-pink rock-hewn city of Petra is one of the seven wonders of the world, and the Roman ruins at Jerash in the north of the country near the border with Syria are among the region’s most impressive.

The desert at Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea have always figured high on the list of the country’s natural attractions.

Until recent years, such sites attracted hundreds of thousands of western tourists.

But now they are devoid of visitors, frightened off by regional unrest in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring.

The head of the country’s tourism office, Abderrazak Arabyat, has now come up with an emergency plan aimed at raising Jordan’s international profile.

“There’s no magic wand we can wave to fix things in a few weeks,” Mr Al Fayez said.

“But we have put in place an ambitious plan targeting in particular the countries of the Gulf” such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

New markets including Turkey and the Far East will also be approached, among them China, Japan and South Korea, with the hope of seeing positive results “from next year”.

* Agence France-Presse