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AMMAN — The tourism revenue reached $2.17 billion during the first four months of 2026, according to preliminary data released by the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) on Monday.
The data showed a 9.5 per cent decline in tourism revenue compared with the same period last year, affected by ongoing regional developments and tensions in the region, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.
The decline comes amid regional challenges that have affected the travel and tourism sector, despite efforts aimed at boosting tourism activity, stimulating domestic tourism and maintaining recovery momentum in the sector.
Meanwhile, the number of international visitors to Jordan reached 1.09 million during the first two months of 2026, according to official data from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The figures showed that 191,067 visitors were same-day visitors, while overnight tourists totalled 903,603, Al Mamlaka TV reported on Monday.
According to the data, the majority of visitors were Jordanians residing abroad, followed by visitors from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Palestine.
The ministry’s data also showed that 61.5 per cent of visitors entered Jordan through land border crossings.
Compared with the same period last year, the number of international visitors saw a drop by 3.6 per cent.
During January and February 2025, Jordan received 1.136 million international visitors, including 198,449 same-day visitors and 937,635 overnight tourists.
The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities had previously stressed its commitment to enhancing the tourism sector’s performance and increasing its contribution to the gross domestic product through developing tourism products and infrastructure, improving visitor experiences, intensifying marketing campaigns and diversifying target markets and tourism patterns.
Earlier, the Central Bank of Jordan reported a 3.8 per cent decline in tourism revenues during the first quarter of 2026, which fell to $1.65 billion, compared with an 8.9 per cent increase to $1.72 billion during the same quarter of 2025.
Tourism revenue in 2025 grew by 7.6 per cent to $7.790 billion, reversing a 2.3 per cent decline recorded in 2024, when revenues stood at $7.239 billion, CBJ data showed in January.
The increase in 2025 was driven by a 15.3 per cent rise in the number of tourists, according to the CBJ data.
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.
