Petra records rise in January tourism numbers — PDTRA

AMMAN — Non-Arab visitors to Petra increased by 37 per cent in January 2020 compared with the same month in 2019, the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority (PDTRA) announced on Sunday. 

PDTRA statistics showed that a total of 75,308 tourists visited the archaeological city in January, including 69,413 non-Arabs and 5,895 Jordanians and Arabs, according to a PDTRA statement to The Jordan Times. 

In January 2019, Petra welcomed 56,160 tourists, including 50,676 non-Arabs and 5,484 Jordanians and Arabs, marking increases of 37 and 7 per cent respectively for each category. 

The number of non-Arab tourists to Petra in January 2020 increased by 100 per cent when compared with the same month of 2018, which saw 34,460 non-Arab visitors to the rose-red city.  

PDTRA Chief Commissioner Suleiman Farajat praised His Majesty King Abdullah's interest in the tourism sector in the Kingdom in general and in Petra in particular. The King, he highlighted, has called on public and private sector stakeholders and local communities to join forces to increase the competitiveness of the sector on an international level. 

Farajat said that January’s figures are a "good indicator that 2020 will be better than 2019", as the city is expected to set a new record in the number of visitors after it saw 1.135 million tourists from various countries last year, which was the highest number of visitors to the site on record.

In November 2019, Petra celebrated its millionth visitor of 2019, Allison Carey from California in the United States. Carey was visiting the Kingdom with her husband Andrew for their honeymoon.

“It’s been a dream of mine since I was a child to come to Petra. When I met my husband, he felt the same,” Carey said at the time.

Her husband added that the experience was “a dream come true”.

Carey received gifts, including a certificate, a golden pass to Petra for life and a seven-day trip to Jordan for two.

The Kingdom’s tourism income increased in 2019 to reach around JD4.11 billion, marking a 10.2 per cent rise compared with 2018. 

The Central Bank of Jordan attributed this increase to the growth in the number of overnight tourists to 5.36 million tourists in 2019, an 8.9-per cent increase compared with 2018.