Internal, inter-Arab tourism key to reviving tourism in Middle East

Despite foreign markets turbulences, it is key to promote internal and inter-Arab tourism to achieve better tourism in the Middle East, Secretary-General of World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Taleb Al-Rifai told KUNA Monday.
Al-Rifai lauded measures that were taken in a recent meeting for the GCC ministers of tourism, where they discussed many tourism-related issues, most prominently the launch of a unified entry visa to the GCC countries that would, hence, attract more tourists to the Gulf region.
He pointed out that UNWTO is always working with the Middle East countries to encourage intra-Arab tourism which can be enhanced through setting up national and economic strategies and improving air transportation. As a result, Arab countries would, collectively, benefit from such an active flow of tourism traffic in and out of the region.
Al-Rifia stressed that a full support from governments, private sectors, tourism companies is essential to achieve an active tourism.
He pointed out that data for the first half of 2014 showed a 4% decline in the number of tourists in the Middle East, in comparison to the same period of 2013. However, North African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Sudan have shown an increase of 6% of international tourists in the first six months of 2014.
He dissected this data further by pointing out the number of tourists who visited Palestine went up by 26%, Oman 24%, Jordan 3%, UAE 2% in the first half of 2014.
Egypt, nonetheless, showed a great decline of 25%; no data was available for tourism in Saudi Arabia, he added.
Despite these figures, Al-Rifai assured that tourism is a flexible market that can be turned into profit easily. He added that a better flow of tourism would come anew once the region regains its security and stability.