Jordan News

Specialists in the tourism sector called on the government to work to reassure the targeted countries about the health situation in Jordan and to ease restrictions imposed on the entry of tourists.

The head of the Jordan Incoming Tourism Association, Awni Kawar, said that many trips to Jordan that were scheduled to take place in March were canceled due to the epidemiological situation in the Kingdom.

Kawar added that the number of cases infected with Omicron is high, but it is less severe, based on the death rate, and called on the government to ease restrictions on travelers.

He suggested that tourists be required to obtain one of two certificates, either the vaccination or the examination, prior to arrival rather than both.

“The tourism sector is devastated, and travel agents are not working at all,” said Mahmoud al-Khasawneh, a board member of the Jordan Travel and Tourism Agents Association.

He indicated that the government should help travel agents survive by easing the burden through exemptions from annual license fees and expanding support programs, and also urged embassies to formulate 15-day contingency plans to make it clear that the health situation in the Kingdom is safe “to save them for the next season.” “.

Most of the 235 travel agencies in Jordan have stopped operating over the past two years and are currently facing accumulated challenges that threaten their existence, Nabih Riyal, spokesman for the Incoming Tourism Association, said.

He stressed that most travel agents owe banks, and some of them owe more than 100,000 dinars, noting that the “Estidama” program of the Social Security Corporation helped agents pay 85 percent of salaries, but it is another debt that they will have to pay in June 2023.

Rial said 50 percent of flights booked to Jordan for the upcoming spring season, which was already 30 percent less than the number before the pandemic, have now been cancelled.

He revealed that during the last New Year’s season, Italy canceled 100 percent of trips and extended the travel ban for tourists to Jordan until March 15, and other countries canceled between 50 and 100 percent of their trips to the Kingdom.

In March 2020, all tourist attractions in Jordan were closed, as part of measures to combat the spread of the Corona virus, causing workers in the tourism sector to suffer from complete unemployment for several months.

Even after the reopening of airports and tourist sites, tourism workers are half unemployed due to the ever-changing rules related to the epidemic in each country.

Tourism constitutes 14 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, accounted for 5 billion dinars in 2019, and directly employs 55,000 Jordanians, according to official figures.