AMMAN, May 8 (NNN-PETRA) – Jordan’s pandemic-hit tourism industry showed signs of recovery, for the first quarter of 2022, and the Eid al-Fitr holiday, following massive campaigns to promote the kingdom’s tourism profile and the eased COVID-19 restrictions.
“All figures indicate that the tourism sector is undergoing a recovery. The holiday season during Eid al-Fitr saw a large increase of visitors to various sites across the country, while occupancy rates in hotels of Aqaba and the Dead Sea area exceeded 90 percent,” Abeer Nauman, economic news editor at the Jordan Press Foundation, said.
Archaeological and tourist sites received about 190,000 visitors for the four-day Eid holiday.
Jordan’s tourism revenues rose by 251 percent during the first quarter of 2022, reaching 893 million U.S. dollars, the Tourism Ministry’s spokesman, Ahmad Rifai, said.
Meanwhile, some 780,000 people visited the kingdom in the first quarter, up by 298 percent year-on-year, the state-owned Al-Mamlaka TV reported, citing Tourism Minister, Nayef Fayez.
“We are on the right track towards the recovery of tourism, and we have exceeded our targets for the first quarter already,” the minister was quoted as saying.
According to Rifai, the ministry’s massive promotional campaigns and the adjustment of pandemic-related restrictions in the kingdom, have contributed to the recovery.
Noting tourism’s 14-percent contribution to Jordan’s GDP, Nauman called for more promotional efforts to revitalise tourism and stimulate hotels, restaurants, and transport consumptions.
According to figures by the Economic and Social Council of Jordan, the number of workers in the tourism industry in 2020 reached 21,000, of whom 73 percent were Jordanians.
Abdel Hakim Al-Hindi, head of Jordan Hotel Association, said, hotel occupancy may continue to increase in the near future, because of eased COVID-19 restrictions, and mild climate of the kingdom.
