AMMAN — The Dead Sea was declared a “safe tourist
destination” last Thursday, after all workers in the area’s tourism sector
received two doses of the
COVID-19 vaccine. As other destinations follow,
experts are expecting a gradual recovery of the industry and a strong summer
season.
اضافة اعلان
“We are doing everything we can to gradually return the
tourism sector to what it looked like in 2019,” said President of the Jordan
Hotels Association Abdul Hakeem Al Hindi in an interview with Jordan News. “We
are gradually and carefully reopening the sector and I expect that by September
we will have passed into a safe period.”
The impact of declaring the Dead Sea a safe zone has already
begun to show, Hindi said. The occupancy rate in the area’s hotels rose to 60
percent following the announcement.
“We finished the Dead Sea tourism are completely,” Hindi
explained, which includes around 2,350 people. “We began administering the
second doses in Amman and this will take around two to three weeks.”
In addition to vaccinating the tourism sector, protocols by
the government and the private sector are applied in hotels and related areas
to ensure complete protection for tourists, he added.
“Today we are beginning to encourage tourism offices to
bring tourists from European countries and Russia to Aqaba and
Amman,” Hindi
said. “We are even noticing that foreigners and those in the GCC are beginning
to come here.”
The Jordan Tourism Board is developing a campaign to convey
to tourists that the destinations in Jordan are safe and that strong health
protocols are in place. As managing director of the Jordan Tourism Board Abed
Al Razzaq Arabiyat told Jordan News, building confidence in the sector is a
priority.
“The main targets of the messaging are tourists from
countries including Europe, GCC, the US, Russia,” explained Arabiyat. “Since
the sector is being vaccinated, this adds confidence in the destination and
helps a lot in marketing.”
The board is coordinating with the Ministry of Tourism, the
Hotels Association and stakeholders in the sector to ensure that all areas
relevant to the industry are safe and vaccinated.
“This will have a positive impact on the number of tourists
who will arrive and go to hotels in the Golden Triangle — Petra, Wadi Rum,
Aqaba — and also the Dead Sea and Amman,” said Arabiyat.
He explained that many airlines including EasyJet and
RyanAir will reopen routes in the coming months, which will help bring these
tourists in.
Once tourism is reactivated, a number of sectors across the
Kingdom will also benefit, including hotels, restaurants, transportation, and
others. This, the managing director explained, will also help reactivate a
major source of income in the country.
“The main contributor of foreign currency in Jordan is
tourism, and we lost that,” said Arabiyat. The tourism sector was equivalent to
12.5 percent of the gross domestic product in Jordan in 2018, according to the
Tourism Ministry.
A major center for tourism in Jordan, the city of Aqaba, is
among those implementing the vaccination campaign. “Around 90 percent of the
tourism sector is vaccinated,” Commissioner for Tourism and Economic Affairs at
the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority Sharhabeel Madi told Jordan News. “We
are hoping that by June we will be done with vaccinating the city.”
Once the entire sector is vaccinated, they will publicly
announce that the destination is safe for tourism. In addition to activating
the sector, this will also generate increased economic activity across the
city, Sharhabeel explained.
Read more national news
.jpg)
.jpg)
