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Syria: Sun,
Sand and Syria
The Oxford Business Group : Damascus, August 10th
Good news came this week for the Syrian tourism sector, with new figures
showing a healthy boost in arrivals. This came in tandem with increasing
efforts to boost regional tourism links, with Iran in particular in the
spotlight for efforts to promote Syria as a vacation destination. Yet
sector insiders were also stressing the need for further investment in
the sector, if numbers are to continue their robust climb.
Speaking at the 2nd Culture Week sponsored by the Syrian Tourist Guides
Association on August 2, Tourism Minister Saadullah Agha al-Kalaa said
he was confident that by the end of this year, some 2.5m tourists would
have visited the country. This was based on new statistics showing that
in the first half of 2004, some 1.17m arrivals had been recorded.
He then pointed to last year's tourism revenue, which, he said, had
reached $1.4bn. He then forecast a substantial improvement on this for
2004.
Last month, the minister had also highlighted the sector's growth. In an
interview mid-July with the official news agency, SANA, he singled out
Arab tourists for particular attention.
During the first half of 2004, he said, the number of Arab tourists had
risen by some 70% compared to the same period of 2003. Some 523,000
visitors from the Arab world had been recorded back then, with 890,000
having touched down in the first half of 2004.
Many of these, it seems, have come from neighbouring Iraq, although just
how many - and which are tourists and which people escaping the fighting
- remains open to question.
Certainly, al-Kalaa told reporters in Damascus on August 9 that,
According to latest statistics, tens of thousands of well-off Iraqi
citizens have come to Syria's coastal cities to spend their summer
holidays... That is besides the large number of Iraqi citizens in Syria
who have come to visit the holy shrine of Imam Hussein's sister, Zainab,
and the other holy shrines of prophets in our country, or those who have
come here to escape the extreme heat in Iraq during the hot season.
Yet the minister described claims that some 300,000 Iraqis were
currently in Syria as exaggeration.
At present, he then said, some 74% of all arrivals were from Arab
countries, 13% from Europe and another 13% from other Islamic countries.
Saudi Arabian, Iranian, Jordanian, and Lebanese tourists spent
respectively $200m, $100m, $78m and $70m in Syria during the year 2003,
he added.
Meanwhile, al-Kalaa also said that his ministry had been turning its
attention to Iranian visitors recently.
I will in the very near future visit Iran so that I will be able to
discuss the ways to boost cultural tourism with my Iranian friends, he
said. This boost might also have a religious dimension, with visits to
important Islamic sites in Syria.
He then also turned to some forecasts for growth, saying that the
country had the potential to attract at least 10m tourists a year, given
its range of historical and religious sites.
Yet it has often been said that if Syria's tourism sector is really to
grow substantially further, it needs not only to have the world-class
historical and religious sites that it does, but also a world-class
tourism infrastructure.
This requires not only investment in hotels and resort facilities, but
also in transportation and airports, alongside a more smoothly
functioning visa and customs procedure. At the same time, promoting the
country as a destination needs to be done more effectively, many sector
analysts argue, with a need for bigger advertising budgets as a
consequence.
The varying needs and ideas of tourists from different countries also
should be taken into account. While Europeans aim for hotels, for
example, Arab tourists often go for rented apartments and houses.
But the signs are now there that deficiencies in the sector are
something the government is well aware of and determined to act upon.
At his August 9 press conference, al-Kalaa said that The budget
earmarked for tourism advertising and marketing in Syria is $1m
annually, while for instance Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia spent $65m, $40m
and $32m respectively for the same purpose in a year.
Much needs to be done then, but changes are also on the way. New
procedures have, for example, been adopted in order to facilitate
granting visas free of charge to certain foreign tourists on arrival in
Syria.
Elsewhere, tourism ministry figures show that the number of beds
increased 5% between 2001 and the end of 2003, which is a comparatively
good result, given that between 1970 and 2002 the number of beds rose by
only 2%.
Yet clearly, al-Kalaa's aim of 10m tourists a year may still be some way
off. Meanwhile though, many of those who visit may not be too worried
about that, as the country's draw with Western tourists has often been
its uncommercialised character. Nonetheless, with al-Kalaa pointing out
that the sector provides work for some 70,000 people, the government
remains keen to see that number continue to grow - along with the value
of tourism receipts. |
