AMNAN — Leaders of the tourism
sector on Sunday commended the government’s intention to remove restrictive
measures related to COVID-19, calling for a decision to be taken as soon as
possible.
اضافة اعلان
Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh said on
Saturday that the government will gradually announce the end of the procedures
related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including reducing the number of daily tests,
transitioning to a stage where we coexist with the virus and its variants, and
removing restrictive measures on all sectors, especially tourism.
The premier had said that these measures,
especially those related to the PCR tests, will facilitate tourism to the
Kingdom.
State Minister for Media Affairs Faisal
Shboul told Jordan News that during the last three days numbers of cases
went down and the government is watching closely to see whether the decline
will continue, and ease restrictions accordingly.
Over the coming two days, the concerned
bodies will discuss several issues, including PCR tests and the vaccination
status of visitors, Shboul said.
The percentage of hospitalization for COVID
cases has dropped to 1.5 percent after having reached 4 percent three weeks
ago.
Shuail Halaseh, president of Jordan Society
of Tourism and Travel Agents, called for a speedy decision, pointing to the
many Western countries that have already cancelled all restrictive measures,
including PCR tests.
Halaseh also called for exempting those who
leave the Kingdom and come back within 11 days from doing a test upon arrival
if they had done one 72 hours before in the country they return from.
He suggested cancelling PCR upon arrival for
tourists who did a test in their home countries or took two shots of the
vaccine.
Hani Massadeh, president of Jordan Tourists
Guides Association, praised the PM’s announcement, describing it as “a step in
right direction”.
Massadeh told Jordan News that tourism
is the most affected of all sectors and tourist guides are the most affected
group in the sector, as they have no assets like other stakeholders and they
work as day laborers.
Massadeh called for drafting a 2-year plan to
deal with the repercussions of the crisis on tourists guides, as part of the
National Plan for Tourism 2022–2025.
He asked for the reduction of installments to
repay the zero-interest loans that were granted to tourist guides during the
crisis, for postponing repayments, and for including 200 tourist guides in the
health insurance scheme.
Halaseh and Massadeh called for extending the
exemption of licence fees paid to the Tourism Ministry and the Jordan Tourism
Board.
Following the outbreak of the COVID-19
pandemic, Jordan closed all tourist sites in March 2020 and reopened them few
moths later, but tourist turnout stayed at minimum level ever since, except for
October and November 2021, when it picked up, only to plummet again after the
emergence of the Omicron mutant.
According to official figures, tourism makes
up around 14 percent of the Kingdom’s GDP and employs 55,000 Jordanians
directly.
In 2019, Jordan’s largest tourist site, the rose-red city
of Petra, celebrated its 1 millionth tourist for the first time in its history.
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