Tourist sector |
|
First broadcast date
2006
Abstract
Due to its geographical, historical and natural advantages, Jordan is a tourist country. Religious and archaeological sites, spas, resorts, natural springs, forests, desert and beaches attract tourists for any kind of tourism.
Being aware of the importance of this sector, the authorities focus on accommodation and hotels, educational and training institutes to train officials in this sector.
Broadcaster
JRTV - Jordan Television
Audiovisual form
Magazine
Primary theme
Tourism and cultural sites
Secondary themes
- Historical heritages / Latin and oriental christendom
- Tourism and cultural sites / Archaeological sites
- Tourism and cultural sites / Eco-tourism development
- Tourism and cultural sites / Tourist sites
Map locations
- Jordan - Jordan valley - Muta
Additional information
Water springs - forests - beaches - sahara - tourists - hotels
Context
Tourism sector
Norig Neveu
This documentary made in 2006 tries to promote Jordanian tourism, which for the past 30 years has been considered one of Jordan's major economic resources. Tourism became part of Jordanian culture in the late 19th century, mainly because of western travellers' interest in archaeological sites, especially Petra. However, these first tourists often only crossed the territory without staying any time. Between 1920 and 1950, the Transjordanian government began to develop hotels and restaurants for tourists which allowed a small increase of the activity. It was helped by companies such as Thomas Cook building the first hotel at Petra. Nevertheless tourism remained limited to rich Westerners able to pay the costs of visiting Petra or Wadi Rum.
From the 1950s, the Jordanian government took a greater interest in the development of this economic activity. In 1953 it created the Ministry of Tourism, responsible for advertising the sites, managing the hotel infrastructure and training guides. This period was marked by a boom in tourism and a huge increase in the number of people visiting the country. This growth was partly due to Jordan having annexed the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1948. The loss of these territories with their important historical sites in 1967 after the Six-Day War led to a drop in tourism in the 1970s (Gray 2002).
It was only from the 1980s that tourism became one of the Jordanian economy's major resources, helped by the growing trend for tourists to stay a week or more. The 1990s were marked by a liberalization of the tourism market which put the Ministry of Tourism in competition with the private sector. Major marketing campaigns proliferated in Europe and the United States (Hazburn, 2008).
Since the 1990s, the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism has developed new tourist areas, highlighting new sites. One aspect of this was to increase green tourism by building nature reserves (Dana, Dibbin, Wadi Mujib) and setting up the Jordan River Foundation. Jordan is also renowned for the quality of some of its hospitals which attract medical tourism. At the same time building up regional tourism has also been one of the government's new strategies. Thus, after the development of Christian tourism from 1960, the Jordanian government developed Islamic tourism in the 1990's. This is centred round mausoleums of the prophets and the companions of the Prophet Muhammad. This diversification of the tourism sector supplements the promotion of the old historic, heritage sites, which remain the most visited, especially Petra.
Over thirty years, tourism has become a key factor of the Jordanian economy, but that also causes significant degradation of certain natural landscapes and archaeological sites, such as Petra, as well as conflicts of interest within local communities.
Bibliography:
Benjamin Porter et Noel B. Salazar, «Heritage Tourism, Conflict, and the Public Interest: An Introduction», International Journal of Heritage Studies, Vol. 11, 5, Décembre 2005, pp. 361-370.
Emad Hejazeen, Tourism and local communities in Jordan. Munich, Vienna, Profil, 2007.
Matthew Gray, «Development strategies and the political economy of tourism in contemporary Jordan», In G. Joffé, Jordan in transition, 1990-2001, Londres, Hurst and Co., 2002, pp. 308-329.
Rami Daher, «Tourism, heritage and urban transformation in Jordan and Lebanon: Emerging actors and global-local juxtaposition», In Rami Daher, Tourism in the Middle East: Continuity, change and transformation, Clevedon, Channel View Publications, 2007, pp. 263-307.
Waleed Hazbun, Beaches, ruins, resorts: The politics of tourism in the Arab World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
