Peace treaty boosts Jordan's tourism sector

Peace treaty boosts Jordan's tourism sector

By Rana Sabbagh

MADABA, Jordan (Reuter): Jordan's small tourism industry is
creaking under a boom fueled by the kingdom's October peace
treaty with Israel.

Jordan's 150 tourist buses, owned by the country's sole
agency, are overwhelmed by foreign and Israeli tourists drawn by
the end of 46 years of conflict between the countries.

The use of commercial buses to ease the strain has created
shortages in public transport, triggering outcries from
Jordanians still hostile to the Jewish state.

Hotels have been running near capacity since January, tour
operators face a shortage of multi-language guides and ancient
sites lack infrastructure to handle the flood of visitors.

"All of this (strains) because the country never expected to
be running at 100 percent," said Khalil Adwan of Jordan's new
Tourism Board, a non-governmental agency promoting the kingdom
abroad.

"If you take the first 90 days of 1995 and the same period in
1994, foreign tourism went up by 60 percent, excluding Israeli
tourists," he told Reuters.

Despite the headaches, tourism has produced the quickest
economic benefits from peace. It is the only sector on Amman's
stock market to show significant gains since the treaty, with
investors rushing into hotel projects.

Over 500 Israeli tourists have entered Jordan each day since
the borders opened in November. More are expected after May 1,
when an initial daily limit of 900 Israeli tourists is lifted.

But many question whether Jordan, with limited facilities, can
handle more tourists.

"Since peace and the opening of borders, we are under severe
pressure," said Nabil Hamarneh, supervising a famous Byzantine
church in Madaba, 40 km (25 miles) from Amman.

Some 1,500 people visit the church each day to see its sixth
century mosaic floor map of the Holy Land, up from 500 before.
Traffic at nearby Mount Nebo, burial site of Moses, has doubled.
Souvenir shops report brisk business.

"My sales went up by 30 percent in the past two months," said
the owner of a shop near the Madaba church selling Bedouin rugs,
artifacts and peace memorabilia. "Peace has revived us."

The tourism ministry says 696,760 tourists came to Jordan in
1994 spent 443 million dinars (US$633 million), up on 390 million
dinars ($557 million) in 1993.

But the boom in business has brought tensions with Israelis.
Jordanian complaints are based on everything from a
straightforward refusal to end the conflict to annoyance with
tight-fisted Israeli shoppers.

"They exhaust your soul and drive you mad before they buy
something," said a carpet merchant, repeating an oft-heard
complaint that Israelis are determined to bargain everywhere from
Bedouin markets to five-star hotels.

Jordan's opposition press has accused Israeli tourists of
hotel thefts, cheating their hosts and desecrating the tomb of
Aaron, brother of Moses, in the ancient Nabatean city of Petra.

Ghazi Saudi, a board member in Jordanian organizations for
both nature preservation and archaeology, accused Israelis this
month of stealing rare wild flowers and illegally taking
archaeological artifacts from the country.

Saudi demanded strict enforcement of national laws: "If this
solution proves to be ineffective, Jordan would be better off
without any Israeli tourists."

There is also unease in the tourism industry that Jordan, with
limited capacity, would be shortsighted in concentrating on
Israeli tourism if it alienated traditional -- and more free-
spending -- tourists from Europe.

"Jordan can never be a destination for mass tourism," said a
tour operator. "We need to target selective tourism and market
our cultural, religious and archaeological riches."

But the Tourism Board's Adwan, while sharing the concern to
retain the European visitors, is confident the kingdom can handle
higher numbers of tourists by investing in new facilities and
upgrading older ones.

Two new companies will add over 100 buses to Jordan's tourist
fleet this year and new guides are about to graduate from crash
courses at universities.

A burst of construction at key sites -- Amman, Petra and the
Red Sea resort of Aqaba -- will raise classified hotel beds to
over 9,000 by 1996 from 6,931, many of them now far below
international standards.