The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) is continuing efforts under its 2026–2030 strategy to transform historical and heritage sites into an integrated tourism network that connects places with memory and local communities through tourist trails, offering visitors, tourists and residents a different way to discover the city.
Executive Director for the Development of Amman’s Popular Neighborhoods and Tourist Trails Mohammad Abu Zeitoun said the municipality’s concept of tourist trails aims to present the city in a different way—not as a collection of scattered sites, but as a connected experience in which visitors walk through the city and discover its details step by step.
Abu Zeitoun noted that the municipality launched 13 tourist trails in the capital in 2024, covering historical, religious, cultural and heritage themes. They include the Amman Walk, Baptism Trail, Cultural Tourism Trail, Religious Trail, Quraysh Caravan Trail, Jordan–Hejaz Railway Trail, Roman Street Trail and Old Towers Trail, among others.
He said the municipality has documented the trails and incorporated their data into geographic databases, while making a number of them available through the Amman Explorer, in addition to preparing maps, brochures, guides and informational materials.
These efforts, carried out in partnership with the Ministry of Tourism, the Department of Antiquities and the Jordan Tourism Board, aim to strengthen Amman’s position as a tourist destination, link historical, heritage and tourist sites within a single network, promote domestic tourism, and make these experiences accessible to residents, visitors and tourists, he added.
Among these trails is the Amman Walk, which he described as a clear example of the concept of turning the city into an integrated tourism experience. The trail encompasses numerous sites and landmarks across Amman, starting from the “See Amman” exhibition at City Hall in Ras Al Ain, passing through the Jordan Museum and then a number of historical, archaeological and heritage sites in downtown Amman, including Quraysh and Talal streets, Faisal Square, the Nymphaeum, the Roman Theater, and finally reaching the Citadel.
Abu Zeitoun explained that the municipality is currently rehabilitating pathways and roads along the trail, removing encroachments, installing directional signage and carrying out infrastructure works to make movement between the various stops an integral part of the tourism experience itself.
He stressed that the municipality’s efforts to develop the trails extend beyond maps and directional signs, and now include the use of artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality (AR/VR) technologies to document urban heritage and design tourist trails. The goal is to provide a more interactive experience and strengthen visitors’ connection with the city’s history.
This approach offers a new model for tourism in Amman, in which archaeological sites become interactive points providing visitors with historical images, digital reconstructions of sites, audio stories, interactive maps and multilingual information.
Abu Zeitoun also noted that the municipality launched the Baptism Trail, which begins at the Amman Walk in downtown Amman and extends toward Iraq Al Amir and on to Bethany Beyond the Jordan (Al-Maghtas), in an effort to connect the capital with a broader historical, religious and tourism route.
The municipality is also working to include a number of archaeological and tourist sites on the World Heritage List and the global tourism map.
Petra
