Over 50,000 vacationers visited Aqaba during Eid Al Adha

AMMAN — Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority Deputy Chief Commissioner Yusuf Mansur said that more than 50,000 holidaymakers spent Eid Al Adha in Aqaba. 

Mansur told The Jordan Times on Monday that Jordanians represented the majority of visitors to the Kingdom’s only port city, some 360km south of Amman.  

The holiday started last Wednesday and ended on Monday.

Thousands of people preferred to spend their vacations in Jordan this Eid rather than travel to Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh or other regional countries, he said. 

“Most of the five-star hotels in Aqaba were fully booked during the vacation,” Mansur noted.

The official said the large turnout of visitors had a positive impact on business activity in the city.

“I talked to several shopkeepers and business owners in Aqaba during Eid and they were generally pleased with the number of visitors and shoppers there,” he added.

On the eve of Eid Al Adha, hotels in Aqaba and the Dead Sea –– favourite destinations for the majority of Jordanians –– recorded over 80 per cent occupancy rates, industry leaders said in previous remarks to The Jordan Times.

According to Mansur, the average occupancy rates in Aqaba’s five-star hotels reached 90 per cent, while the figure was 80 per cent in three- and four-star hotels.

10,365 tourists, of whom 4,050 were Jordanian citizens, visited Petra during the holiday, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

During the five-day holiday, thousands of Jordanian holidaymakers also spent the vacation outside the Kingdom, particularly in Turkey and Sharm El Sheikh.

Shaher Hamdan, president of the Jordan Society of Tourism and Travel Agents, said last week that over 18,000 Jordanians booked to spend the holiday in Egyptian resorts and around 12,000 were due to head to Turkey.