Bringing tourism to the local level

Jordan’s Minister of Tourism & Antiquities Maha Khatib explains how Jordan’s tourism industry is all about bringing benefit to local communities in Jordan.

ATN: What is your strategy for increasing visitor numbers to Jordan?
Jordan prepared in 2004 a national strategy for tourism with specific targets from 2004 to 2010.

The target was to reach 1.6 billion JOD (US$2.3bn) in tourism receipts by the end of 2010. What happened is that in 2008 we were already beyond that number. In 2009 the receipts were 2.1 billion JOD ($3bn) and I think by the end of 2010 which looks extremely good, for the first quarter we will easily reach 2.4 billion JOD ($3.4bn).

So we reached the target two years early. This is why we are updating our strategy. What we really need to do now is not to talk about numbers as much as making sure that we keep the quality of service up, making sure that we diversify even more our product, and making sure that – and this is the most important – the benefit reaches the local communities, not only the big investors.

ATN: How will you ensure that local communities benefit from tourism?
We are putting a lot of effort into creating new tourism-related products at the local community level.

We are talking about 12 thematic ‘trails’, some of which are related to nature – hiking, biking, trekking that follow a certain route and pass through certain villages which can provide food and beverage and lodging – it’s ‘eco-tourism’ style.

Other themes are to do with heritage in our cities. We are working with the communities to preserve the very rich heritage and architecture of some of the downtown areas of our cities.

We are also working on a trail that connects castles in Jordan, and another trip that has to do with the Arab Revolution, and a re-enactment behind the Lawrence of Arabia story.

ATN: How has Jordan managed to keep increasing its visitor numbers despite the economic downturn?
For so many reasons – one of the most important is that we were able to maintain our service levels irrespective of the crisis.

We didn’t sell ourselves cheap because we didn’t want to compromise quality unlike so many countries where they really sold themselves cheap. We are actually getting a lot of investors with new products that have to do with luxury and spa.

ATN: So are you specifically looking to target the high-end visitor to Jordan?
Yes, Jordan has never been a mass-market destination and we don’t ever want it to be.

Jordan is a destination that is visited by those who appreciate the diversity between culture, history, nature and eco-tourism. We know that people who come to Jordan know about Jordan before they come.

We don’t have long beaches where people can get $200 packages, and we don’t want those kind of people because we don’t want to compromise our natural recourses.

Jordan has very precious archeology that would be in jeopardy if we allow very big numbers and a huge flow of people. We are taking care of everything in Jordan- nature, heritage, archaeology, and we are building up our tourism industry slowly but surely.

ATN: What do you think is most appealing to GCC visitors about Jordan?
The weather is very very appealing. Jordan is unique in that it is a country that does not have humidity at all.

We are living in a beautiful country that has very moderate weather in summer and in winter and beautiful variety of weather at the same time. It’s cool in Amman in summer time, hot at the Dead Sea where you can swim and sun tan. This is helping us a lot.