AMMAN — Director–General of the Jordan Tourism
Board Abdul Razzaq Arabiyat said that a main obstacle to the board’s drive to
attract tourists to the Kingdom is the high tax levied on travelers departing
from
Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA).
اضافة اعلان
It “is considered one of the most expensive airports
in the world in terms of tax imposed on passengers,” he said.
This poses “a dilemma for the tourism sector”,
Arabiyat said, adding that “a committee was formed with the QAIA management,
which will finish its work soon and which will issue recommendations to the
Council of Ministers to cancel or reduce airport taxes”.
Fly Jordan CEO
Amjad Maslamani told
Jordan News that the most important factor that helps revitalize tourism in any country is
the low cost of accessing it.
Each passenger leaving Jordan has an extra $81 added
to the ticket, SITA fee for each passenger is $5, ground services for the trip
cost about $1,000, the landing fee at QAIA per flight is $300, Maslamani said,
stressing that “all these costs have a direct impact on tourism in Jordan, as
they lead to an increase in airline ticket prices, which weakens the movement
of tourists to Jordan”.
According to Maslamani, in addition to the fees
above, “air transport has a high cost, having risen by nearly 50 percent
compared to neighboring countries, not to mention the cost of energy, which
affects the prices of hotel rooms, the high cost of food in hotels and
restaurants and the high entry fees for tourists at archaeological sites.”
“We have to address these points in order to be able
to compete,” he stressed.
Mahmood Al-Awadi, owner of a travel agency, told
Jordan
News that high taxes have a negative impact on travelers who “are charged
additional expenses”. This, he said, “weakens the tourism movement in Jordan,
which, in turn, affects all sectors concerned with tourism”.
Awadi added that lowering the tax should have a
positive impact on tourism, helping revive the sector and encouraging tourists
to visit the Kingdom, a desirable outcome “in light of the difficult economic
conditions”.
President of the
Jordan Hotel Association Abdel Hakim
Al-Hindi told
Jordan News that “the high taxes imposed on passengers
will negatively impact the hospitality industry, too” as “a person who intends
to travel to a particular destination forms a general view of this destination,
starting with travel tickets and overnight stays, to determine the budget
before making a decision to go there”.
Hindi added that in order
to promote tourism in Jordan, “we, as a hotel association, decided to decrease
hotel prices, in light of the hard economic conditions, and I believe that if
each entity lowers its prices, we would have reached a radical solution to
revive the sector”.
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