Jordan Times
Friday, December 15, 2006
31,926 tourists visit
Petra last month
By Dalya Dajani
AMMAN — Tourist arrivals to Petra went up by 15.5
per cent last month, reaching a total of 31,926 visitors compared to 27,014 in
October, a tourism official said Sunday.
Malek Amarat, head of Petra’s Tourism Department, said the increased tourist
traffic flow was a promising sign for the site, which recently witnessed a
slowdown from recurring instabilities in the region.
“There has been an improvement in tourist arrivals compared to October’s
figures, the majority of them Europeans on package tours from Italy, Germany,
Spain and the United Kingdom,” Amarat told The Jordan Times.
“We hope this will be a trend for the coming few months,” he added.
According to the tourism official, 26,170 of total arrivals to Petra in November
were foreigners, compared to 21,417 the previous month.
While registering an improvement, the October and November figures were 24.6 per
cent lower than those in the same period of 2005.
A total of 58,940 tourists visited Petra in the past two months compared to
78,194 in the same period of last year.
Amarat, however, believes tourism will pick up in the months ahead as the
industry continues with intense promotions of the ancient city abroad. He also
said Petra’s current participation in the New Seven Wonders of the World
campaign had helped put the site in the spotlight.
Petra, the Kingdom’s main tourist magnet, is currently competing against 20
other world heritage sites that have been nominated for the competition.
Organised by the Swiss-based, nonprofit New 7 Wonders (N7W) Foundation, it is
the first global voting campaign seeking to highlight leading cultural and
historical treasures deemed worthy of global recognition.
The 21 sites, which include the Statue of Liberty in New York, Stonehenge in the
United Kingdom, the Colosseum in Rome and the Kyomizu Temple in Kyoto, Japan are
being promoted through various media channels and include a world tour of these
sites designed to help showcase their cultural significance.
Filming crews have already visited the Acropolis in Athens, the Alhambra in
Granada last month and are scheduled to visit Petra in January.
Amarat said the campaign, which has put Petra in the centre of global attention,
could subsequently help draw more visitors to the site.