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AMMAN — Tourism bookings in Petra have been fully cancelled for March, as regional tensions continue to weigh on travel to the Kingdom.
Speaking to Al Mamlaka TV on Monday, Chief Commissioner of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority (PDTRA) Adnan Sawaeer said that cancellations for April have reached 60 per cent, while 45 per cent of May bookings have also been cancelled, warning that the figures could rise further due to regional developments.
He noted that Petra entered 2026 with promising tourism indicators, but visitor numbers later dropped sharply due to surrounding regional developments, at times falling to near-zero levels.
Sawaeer said that Petra is among the destinations most affected, given that the local community relies heavily on tourism as its main economic driver.
He added that the PDTRA began precautionary measures to protect tourism sector workers and preserve their jobs, including promoting domestic tourism programmes such as “Urdunna Jannah”.
The authority also plans to use the quieter period to carry out development, maintenance and infrastructure improvement projects across the city.
In February, the PDTRA said that Petra welcomed 582,550 visitors during 2025, up 27 per cent from 457,215 visitors in 2024.
Foreign visitor numbers showed sharp fluctuations over the 2019–2025 period. Arrivals peaked at about 1 million in 2019 before collapsing to 271,760 in 2020 and 135,229 in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tourism began to recover in 2022 and 2023, with foreign arrivals rising to 683,798 and 985,696, respectively. That recovery was abruptly reversed in 2024, when foreign visitor numbers plunged 74 per cent to 257,284, largely due to regional developments.
In 2025, foreign arrivals climbed again to 373,752, a 45 per cent increase compared with the previous year. Foreign tourists accounted for nearly two-thirds, or 64 per cent, of Petra’s total visitors during the year.
