National Tourism Strategy seeks to surpass 2019 figures — Fayez

AMMAN — The Tourism Ministry is seeking to surpass tourism figures recorded in 2019 through employing the 2021-2025 National Tourism Strategy, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Nayef Fayez said on Monday.

The Cabinet recently approved the 2021-2025 National Tourism Strategy.

Speaking to the Jordan News Agency, Petra, Fayez noted that the strategy, which is consistent with the government’s economic priorities programme for 2021-2023, focuses on five main themes: Tourism product development, human resources, marketing, heritage management and protection.

He added that the strategy aims at doubling the number of tourists as well as revenues by 2025, noting that some 5.3 million tourists visited the Kingdom in 2019 while tourism revenues from the same year amounted to JD4.1 billion.

The minister said that Jordan’s tourism income recorded an increase during the first 11 months of this year to reach JD1.692 billion compared with JD1 billion in 2020, according to data issued by the Central Bank of Jordan.

He also pointed out that the total number of tourists coming to the Kingdom in the January-November period of the this year exceeded 2.1 million, while the number of overnight tourists reached 1.8 million, noting that these figures “exceeded expectations and contributed to the recovery of the tourism sector”.

In regard to “Urdun Jannah programme, which encourages domestic tourism, Fayez said that more than 50 per cent of the cost of the trips under this scheme is covered by the ministry and the Jordan Tourism Board.