Chartered flights boost tourism in low season

AMMAN — Tourism stakeholders commended Wednesday efforts by the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) to encourage tourists to visit the Kingdom through supported chartered flights.اضافة اعلان

Charters are irregular flights, organized when there is no flight scheduled to a certain destination. JTB supports the price of the trip to encourage tourists to book to Jordan, tourism expert Adel Amin told Jordan News.

In a statement to Jordan News, JTB said that 185 tourists from Slovakia arrived in Aqaba Tuesday on a chartered flight that was supported by the board. The flight is the first in a series that will continue until the end of the year, with an average stay of seven to 14 nights for each tourist.

Tourism Minister Nayef Al-Fayez said in the statement that the arrival of the charter indicated the continuation of tourism turnout and the willingness of tourists to visit Jordan during the low season.



JTB Director-General Abdelrazq Al-Arabyiat said that the charter schedule will increase hotel occupancy in Aqaba by 7,000 hotel rooms during June and July, with 14,000 beds at five-star hotels.

Arabyiat said that the tourists will visit several sites in Jordan, including the famed rose-red city of Petra in trips organized by a local travel agent.

Local transportation in Jordan should also be supported to facilitate the movement of tourists to and from all tourist attraction, Hassan Al-Ababneh, a tourism expert told Jordan News Wednesday.

“Tourists who have no particular itinerary, transport to internal attractions should be organized and subsidized to enrich their stay and spread the benefit among tourist suppliers at all sites”, Ababneh explained.

He praised JTB’s endeavors in supporting the tourism sector’s growth by subsidizing charter flights.

Raed Abdelhaq, a former president of the Jordan Tour Guides Association, said that tourists coming through such flights should be encouraged for daily visits to tourist destinations such as Petra, the Dead Sea, and Jerash to ensure the maximum benefit to all entities in the sector including guides, travel agents and local transporters.



Mahmoud Al-Khasawneh, member of the Jordan Society for Travel Agents, told Jordan News that flight will help the tourism sector continue recovering from the repercussions of COVID-19, during which tourism came to complete standstill.

Khasawneh called for increasing this type of support to bring in more tourists to the Kingdom and keep the momentum tourists of turnout, especially during the low season, which is June to September.

According to official figures, tourism accounts for 14 percent of the Kingdom’s GDP and employs 55,000 people.


Read more Features
Jordan News