Business News

Conference opens in Aqaba to tackle challenges facing Arab tourism

Sep 29, 2011, 15:29 GMT

Amman - A conference opened on Thursday at Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba to look into ways of spurring the regional tourism industry, which has incurred billion of dollars of losses as a result of the Arab Spring revolts.

The three-day meeting, held under the slogan 'Toward Creative Administration of Tourism Investments,' is being attended by a number of Arab tourism ministers as well as representatives of global organizations.

Opening the conference, Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit underscored the importance of developing tourism products and infrastructure to attract visitors to the region from all over the world.

'We consider the promotion of regional investments a strategic target for supporting the common Arab tourism industry which will be instrumental in reactivating inter-Arab investment and tourism,' Bakhit said.

He pointed out that the selection of Aqaba as 'the capital of Arab tourism for 2011' coincided with the celebration of World Tourism Day under the theme 'Tourism-Linking Cultures.'

Chairman of the Arab Tourism Organization, Bander bin Fahd, attached special importance to the meeting in handling the devastating fallout on regional tourism from Arab uprisings.

He estimated the loss incurred by the Arab tourism industry as a result of the Arab Spring at about 7 billion dollars.

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