Sector leaders commend separation of tourism, labour portfolios

AMMAN — Representatives of the tourism sector on Tuesday said an independent portfolio for the ministry will ensure the sector’s challenges are addressed head on.

In phone interviews with The Jordan Times, sector insiders said tourism, which contributes 14 per cent to the gross domestic product, must be given “further attention” to improve performance, in light of competition with other regional attractions.

Nayef Al Fayez was sworn in on Monday as tourism minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, before which Labour Minister Nidal Katamine was also handling the tourism portfolio.

Michael Nazzal, chairman of the Jordan Hotel Association, said the Tourism Ministry must be “independent and sovereign”, especially since it is expected to create 200,000 new jobs over the next 10 years. 

In previous remarks to The Jordan Times, Nazzal said the tourism sector currently provides around 42,000 direct and 120,000 indirect jobs.

“The performance of the tourism sector today is at its lowest, including revenues, number of tourists and hotel occupancy rates,” he said, and the ministry, under new leadership now, must “comprehensively” re-examine the status quo of the sector. 

Describing the separation of the tourism and labour portfolios as a “correction of a previous mistake”, Issam Fakhr Eddin, head of the Jordan Restaurants Association, said a country like Jordan needs “five tourism ministers and a full-time staff” in order to solve the sector’s problems.

“Tourism is the second largest industry in Jordan,” Fakhr Eddin said, and it has “high potential” that the government must invest in.  

The new ministry leadership is required “more than ever” to remove obstacles, improve performance and develop effective marketing strategies, he noted.

For Shaher Hamdan, president of the Jordan Society of Tourism and Travel Agents, consecutive governments have not been aware of the importance of the tourism sector, often seeing its ministry as a “burden”.

“The Tourism Ministry is the ministry most capable of achieving economic growth if given the attention it needs,” Hamdan said.

Fayez, a former tourism minister, has worked for long in the sector and is aware of its challenges, he added.

Calling on Fayez to develop a detailed five-year plan with a timeline on what needs to be achieved, Hamdan noted that the region’s political instability is not the only reason for the drop in the number of tourists.

“The sector should be looked at from an economic perspective,” he said, calling for promoting domestic tourism, which includes rehabilitating tourist attractions, and providing them with sustainable and efficient infrastructure.

Hamdan also called for supporting the sector to enable it to provide low-cost services and compete with regional tourist destinations.

Major sector challenges include the lack of a trained workforce, legislative constrictions, high operational costs and a “high sales tax”, according to sector representatives.