TUNISIA: Tunisia Received Over 600,000 Russian Tourists

Tunisian tourism authorities reported declining numbers of international visitors. From January to September 2016, the country’s tourist revenues declined by more than 8% compared to the same period in 2015, and by 34% compared with 2014, announced the Tunisian Ministry of Tourism.

The revenues amounted to 730 million euros, compared to 800 million euros in the first nine months of 2015. The number of overnight stays has increased slightly (14.84 million in 2016 compared to 14.01 million in 2015).

Tunisian tourism had a small turnaround with the stopover of a cruise ship in October in La Goulette, the first in over a year.

Meanwhile, the world’s number one travel company, the German tour operator Tui, announced on November 2, 2016 that it chartered Tunisair planes for weekly flights between Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and Djerba. Tui will increase its accommodation capacity in Tunisia starting from the spring of 2017 with the opening of two hotels, in addition to the three facilities that it already owns.

Since the 2011 revolution, and especially the wave of terrorist attacks in 2015, the decline of the tourist industry alone cost Tunisia 3 points of GDP. Tourism declined by 35.1% in 2015, by 66% in six years.

After the last year attack in Tunis and then in Sousse, around a million people cancelled their tours in the country. Moreover, some 70 hotels had to close.

Today, however, Tunisian tourism stakeholders and local companies are trying to cope with the influx of Russian visitors – by the end of October there were 600,000 Russian visitors recorded, which is a tenfold growth over 2015.

The country focused mostly on non-Arab visitors like the French, Brits and Spaniards who came to spend their holiday in huge numbers. Thanks to the travel warnings following the attacks however, Tunisian tourism authorities needed to look elsewhere.

The sector benefited greatly from the Moscow’s travel restrictions for Egypt and Turkey, which had been the two most popular destinations for Russian travelers. Now, they had to find some alternative – Tunisia. Visa-free travel and low prices are the biggest draw for the Russian holidaymakers. Local companies expect continuing growth of their numbers.

MOROCCO: National Plan To Increase Tourism Business

Despite unfavorable world conjecture, Morocco’s Ministry of Tourism vows to improve its hospitality industry by making positive changes in quality, quantity, and capacity to meet the goals of the Vision 2020.

Vision 2020 is the set of objectives that the Ministry of Tourism planned for the Moroccan tourism industry in 2010, to be accomplished by the year 2020. The goals include increasing the number of tourists that come to Morocco, improving quality of services, and making tourism a more prosperous industry in the Moroccan economy.

Morocco’s Vision 2020 Tourism Strategy is “a unique tourism model that combines vigorous growth with responsible management of the environment and respect for socio-cultural authenticity,” said the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in its “Tourism Trends and Policies 2016” report published in March 2016.

Despite its huge potential as a locomotive for sustainable development, many factors of tourism in Morocco are still facing major quantitative and qualitative challenges.

The changing expectations of tourists, the expansion of tourism offerings globally, and the development of new technologies require professional development and enhancement of the quality of services of traditional players. The projections of Vision 2020 highlight a need for the creation of companies, which will generate some 50,000 new jobs.

Morocco’s 2020 Tourism Strategy aspires to meet those challenges by supporting investors in tourism, developing quality among tour operators, and improving standards in tourism through regulatory reforms.

“Tourism is harbinger of wealth, a source of employment, a way for Morocco to open itself to the outside world, and a means for Morocco to attract investment,” Minister Lahcen Haddad told Morocco World News in an interview.

To achieve the Vision 2020 Tourism Strategy, the Moroccan Ministry is focusing on the following four major components:

Regarding regulatory reform, there are four main sections: tourist accommodations, travel agencies and organizations, tourist transportation, and tour guides.

This ensures professionalism in tourist businesses and enforces quality standards. It includes a rating and classification system for hotels and resorts, which can help quality institutions improve visibility and will encourage low-rated institutions to improve quality of service. The licensing system for tour companies, tourist transportation, and tour guides can ensure higher quality services and prepare workers to be cultural ambassadors for Morocco.

Particular importance is given by the Ministry of Tourism to accommodation sector, which is a determining factor in choosing a tourist destination. Considerable efforts have helped to increase the number of tourist accommodation establishments and bed capacity, which increased from 97,000 beds in 2001 to more than 230,000 beds at the end of 2015.

The ranking system rewards quality service and encourages other institutions to meet higher standards. High-rated institutions benefit from marketing activities, including promotion and public relations work by the Moroccan National Tourist Office (ONMT) and the Regional and Provincial Centers of Tourism, with the opportunity to participate in a wide range of fairs and exhibitions abroad and in Morocco. Other institutions can benefit from the support and guidance of the government and other businesses.

“Today there are more than 950 travel agencies,” says the Ministry of Tourism. “More than half are concentrated in Casablanca and Marrakech.”

Before a travel agency opens in Morocco, it must obtain approval from the Ministry of Tourism. For the first year of operation, it has a provisional license. In the second year, an official license is granted. After that, certain procedures determine how a company may open new branches, change the directors of the travel agency, change the name of the agency, or close it.

Regarding tourist transportation, the main goal is to ensure quality among operators. These operators must ensure the maintenance of their vehicles and keep them in perfect condition and are required to report to the CNSS/AMO. The operator must submit an annual activity report with the services offered and their assessment of the conditions of implementation of these benefits.

Tour guides, seen by the ministry as “cultural ambassadors” to visitors in Morocco, are also held accountable for the quality of the services they provide. City tour guides provide information to tourists about all geographic, historical, architectural, cultural, social, economic aspects, and other information and assist and support them, while natural area guides accompany and assist tourists during excursions and hikes in natural sites, mountains, and deserts.

The tourism sector needs “the backing of modern tourism businesses, structured and competitive, to be capable of facing significant qualitative challenges and to deliver a full range of services aligned to the needs of Vision 2020,” the Ministry says.The first of the support systems put in place is “Moussanada Siyaha (Tourism Support),” which is aimed at tourist accommodation, tourist transportation, and travel agencies. More than 600 businesses will be supported in 2020, with a budget of MAD 420 million.

Now, more than halfway to Vision 2020, the Ministry of Tourism is conducting a study to evaluate the effectiveness of this system. The results will determine if they will make changes or adopt a new version of this program, which will be more inclusive in terms of the kinds of services offered and the types of businesses supported.

The second of the support systems will be “Renovotel 3,” which is a fund financed in part by Moroccan banks dedicated to upgrading and improving hotels and other accommodations. The main goal is to promote tangible investments, such as building improvements and renovations.

The ministry says that the total budget of MAD 500 million leads to a total investment of about MAD 1.3 billion, and the upgrade of about 16,000 hotel rooms.

Thirdly, national federations and associations of tourism will receive better support to ensure better representation of their members.

These federations and associations will benefit from a corporate restructuring offered by the ministry to ensure better representation of their members and the creation of a connection between their projections and aspirations of Vision 2020.

Finally, the ministry will host seminars on professionalism to support professional development.

The concept of a “Caravan of Competitiveness” was born from the ambition to support the competitiveness of the tourism sector by offering professionals various trainings and skill building activities to strengthen their managerial, technical, and financial capacities. This environment is available in workshops, seminars, speed meetings, and networking.

JAMAICA: Jamaica Lures Japanese Tourists

Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett and tourism director Paul Pennicook will meet with several tourism stakeholders in Japan as part of efforts to re-engage the market and grow visitor traffic to Jamaica.

Bartlett left the island on Sunday May 29 and returns on Monday June 6, a release from the ministry reported Monday.

“Two decades ago Jamaica received upwards of 20,000 Japanese visitors per annum but has since declined to roughly 2,000 per annum, due in part to a long economic slowdown in Japan and other factors,” Bartlett said

“However, with the world’s fourth largest economy and a population of over 127 million, still humming along and over 17 million people travelling overseas every year, I believe we have an opportunity to re-engage Japan on a more sustained basis and increase visitor traffic to Jamaica,” he added.


The release said that Bartlett will meet with representatives from various airlines and prospective investors at a reception being hosted in his honour by Jamaican Ambassador to Japan Ricardo Allicock.

Bartlett will also have a meeting with chairman of the Ueshima Coffee Company (UCC) to discuss a proposed coffee festival in Jamaica and related tourism activities.

UCC manages coffee plantations on the Blue Mountains.

EGYPT: Tourism Livelihoods Low In Luxor

Mohamed Abdelhadi is struggling to make ends meet as the dip in the tourism industry hits his tourist reliant business in Luxor

Local tourism industry workers tell MEE about the difficulties they have faced since the Egyptian revolution of 2011.

The main cobblestone street stretching between Luxor’s train station and the Temple of Luxor, a massive complex of ancient Egyptian columns, walkways and statues abutting the Nile, is empty in the midday sun. Shopkeepers sprawl on plastic chairs in front of their shops piled to the rafters with carpets and pottery. Young men stand idle on the walkway beside the Nile, hoping to attract a customer for a ride on a felucca, a triangle-sailed boat used to cruise the waterways of Egypt.

Mohamed Abdelhadi, 27, leans back on the seat of his horse-drawn carriage parked in Luxor’s main street, his sandals up on the footboard. Wearing a long, light robe called a galabiyya, he smokes one of the handful of cigarettes he can dig up the money to buy each day. Abdelhadi is waiting for a few tourists to pass by who might pay him for a ride on his carriage. “On the TV, they say that tourism, is coming back,” Abdelhadi says soberly. “But what I see right in front of me is that there’s nothing.”

Luxor, a city along the Nile in southern Egypt some 650 kilometers south of the capital Cairo, has long depended on tourism to hold together its local economy. While the lush fields around the Nile support vibrant agriculture, most locals hoping to make a decent living outside of agriculture or the nearby sugarcane factories look to tourism. But with the revolution of 2011 and the ensuing unrest in Egypt and throughout the region, locals say tourism has plummeted, and so have their livelihoods.

“In 2009, there was business. I picked people up, dropped them off. The whole area was moving. Since the moment the revolution broke out, tourism dropped off,” said Abdelhadi, speaking on the scarcity of clients for his horse carriage, which he has been driving for tourists since he was a teenager.

In the bedroom of his brother, Ahmed Ali, 30, in their family’s home in Luxor’s Karnak al-Qadima neighbourhood, Abdelhadi discussed the rise in prices in post-revolution Egypt that has compounded difficulties in getting by.

“Everything’s gotten more expensive,” Abdelhadi said. “For example, prior to the revolution I used to give 50 Egyptian pounds to my mother and father, and they would buy food for lunch and dinner. Now, I’d have to give them 100 pounds.”

Indeed, the past several years in Egypt have witnessed inflation and rising living costs nearly across the board. According to Trading Economics, a market research and statistics organisation, the “cost of food in Egypt increased 9.79 percent in April of 2015 over the same month in the previous year”.

Further, long-standing fuel subsidies were cut last summer by the administration of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in an attempt to reel in the country’s ballooning budget deficit. The move sparked protests throughout Egypt, and has driven prices for a variety of goods and services still higher.

There are nine people in the family’s modest apartment where Abdelhadi lives. His brother, Ahmed, also a horse carriage driver, said his wife and two children, along with his parents, are on the breaking point without tourism and the work it brings.

“I’m thinking hard about how to pay for food, drink, a pack of smokes, the rent for the house.” He added: “I think of this so much so that I can’t sleep.”

Rasha Azaizy, spokeswoman for Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism, showed optimism for the future of tourism in Egypt. She said that the number of visitors to Egypt is on the increase, with a 6.88 percent rise in visitors between January and March. She also noted an 8.4 percent increase in the number of nights reserved in hotels over the same period.

The areas most negatively affected by what she casually refers to as “the events of 2011”, said Azaizy, were Cairo, Luxor and Aswan. “The tour usually begins in Cairo and ends in Aswan,” she said.

Azaizy ran through the hotel occupancy rates for 2014. With the exception of Egypt’s largest Red Sea resort towns like Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, most of the numbers were well below 50 percent. Luxor’s hotel occupancy stood at an abysmal eight percent.

However, Azaizy says that the Ministry of Tourism has ambitious plans to remake Egypt as a regional hub for tourism. According to Azaizy, by August the ministry will have a dedicated advertising agency which will embark upon an “integrated campaign” to target tourists from specific countries like Russia, England, Germany and Italy. The campaign, which aims to attract 20 million tourists and $26 billion of revenue by 2020, is intended to draw tourists inland to sites like Luxor and Aswan for cultural sightseeing - tourists who might otherwise venture no further than the beaches of Red Sea resorts.

“We will focus on destinations that are suffering. We’ll remind the world that Egypt has more to it than just beaches,” Azaizy said.

Waheed Lawandy, 42, an English-speaking tour guide in Luxor, has depended on tourists for his livelihood since the 1990s. Working as a freelancer, he says that prior to the January 2011 revolution and the upheaval that has followed, work was never in short supply.

“We tour guides used to get phone calls from companies to go work. One day one company would call, the next day another company. We hardly had any rest.”

Working with tourists primarily from Japan, South Korea, the the United States, England, France and Germany, Lawandy says the entire local economy was stimulated. “I was bringing in lots of money. I rented carriages, cars, went to clubs and cafés. Even people not working in tourism were making money.”

Lawandy thinks that with the right efforts, the tourism economy could be rebuilt in Luxor in a matter of months. “I see the solution as reactivating tourism through social media, traditional media and the Ministry of Tourism. They need to show tourists that these areas are not dangerous.”

But for Abdelhadi, the idea of recovering work - and a life - in tourism is clouded by pessimism. For him, there’s not much that can be done to save Luxor. Instead, he sees emigrating as his best bet.

“I want to get out of here, to travel abroad, frankly. I would go to any country that has work,” he said while dragging on a cigarette in his brother’s bedroom.

But without a means to make the money required to travel abroad to work, Abdelhadi seems trapped in unemployment, like one in three Egyptian youth, and constantly hovering on the margins of Egyptian society. Unable to leave the country, and trying to survive off of an industry highly sensitive to security in a country that hasn’t been so unstable in decades, is waiting for a solution from above.

“How do I bring work to my area? I’m waiting for it to come. It’s up to the powerful people on top to do that.”