Tourism Ministry urged to cooperate with sector associations

AMMAN — The Jordan Federation of Tourism Associations (JFOTA) on Monday called on the Ministry of Tourism to be a “real partner” and defend the demands of the sector, which is “incurring tremendous losses” due to taxes.

Michael Nazzal, JFOTA chairman and president of the Jordan Hotel Association, said the Kingdom is an expensive destination for visitors, which lowers its chances of competing with other tourist destinations in the region such as Turkey and Egypt.

He attributed the costly packages provided for tourists to the high cost of rooms and visa fees.

In addition, passengers pay an airport tax of JD40.

Nazzal explained that operating one hotel room before generating any profits costs JD 90 per night as the cost of electricity is JD50 and employees’ wages amount to JD40.

Thus, he noted, hotels cannot lower their prices and compete with hotels in other areas.

“We want the ministry to be our voice when there is a plan to raise electricity tariffs further,” Nazzal said, while questioning the ministry’s role especially after it authorised the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority to manage the sector in Aqaba, the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority to manage the industry in Petra and the Dead Sea Development Zone to manage it in the Dead Sea area.

“Even in Amman, the Greater Amman Municipality is interfering in the sector and imposing fees on us,” Nazzal told reporters at a press conference held by representatives of several tourism associations.

Currently, there are 26,000 hotel rooms in Jordan and the sector provides 45,000 direct jobs for Jordanians.

Nazzal noted that the hospitality industry plans to increase the number of hotel rooms to 50,000 by 2025, and provide up to 1 million direct and indirect jobs.

However, if the situation remains as is, the sector will not achieve its goals, he warned, explaining that investors will not invest in hotels if the industry continues to incur losses.

Nazzal also blamed “weak promotion” for the low tourist turnout.

“We need the ministry to be our partner and deliver our voice to decision makers,” he said.

According to figures presented at the press conference, only 582,000 of the 4,966,698 visitors to Jordan in the past 11 months came as part of tourist groups, and just 350,000 of them visited Petra

Noting that several hotels in Petra were forced to close due to low occupancy, Nazzal said reducing entry fees to the Nabataean city, now JD50, might be one of the solutions to encourage more visitors.

Other sector representatives called for the same demands.

Ali Armoush, vice president of the Jordan Restaurant Association, accused the ministry of not planning for the future of the sector with the association. He noted that regulations governing the industry are being revisited and modified without “referring to us”.