DEAD SEA — Tourism sector in the Arab world helps in direct employment by around 10 million jobs, which means 12 percent of the jobs in the Arab world are in the tourism and aviation sector, according to Bandar Fahad Al Fehaid, president, Arab Tourism Organization of the Arab League.
During the Arab Aviation Summit 2016 held on Dec.5 at the Dead Sea, Jordan, Al Fehaid revealed that investment in the Arab world in the tourism sector is expected to reach $323 billion by 2020.
He said that the Arab Tourism Organization of the Arab League is planning to develop and implement programs that will support the health tourism in Arab countries, including Jordan that is specialized and have the ability and resources to benefit from having health tourism.He added that the expenditure of Arabs abroad and in countries outside the Arab region is around $28 billion every year. He stressed that since the Arab region is capable of having a health tourism sector and succeed in it, the region should have 35 percent of this amount of expenditure.
Al Fehaid said latest studies showed that tourism and aviation sector is one of the main sectors when it comes to reducing the unemployment rate globally, especially that it creates direct jobs in the field or indirect jobs in other sectors.
The theme of the summit ‘Linking Cultures, Driving Economies’ seeks to draw attention to the interdependent roles the aviation and tourism sectors play in contributing to the greater economic development of the region.
The summit was held under the patronage of Lina Annab, Minister of Tourism and Antiques, Jordan, who said «this conference brings together government officials, industry stockholders, and experts to reflect on aviation as a tool of linking cultures and driving economies.»
She added that the aviation is a crucial driver for having a strong economy and today it is a force that creates and support jobs globally and it helps in reducing poverty.
«We can›t speak of aviation with the isolation of tourism. As we all know tourism and aviation are linked, and tourism means creating more jobs. Tourism means poverty reduction. Most of the emerging economies have tourism as a major economic activities,» Annab said.
During the summit, it was noted that several factors are affecting the tourism and aviation sector negatively, such as the infrastructure of the airport as well as visa.
Annab explained that the infrastructure of the airports and taking care of or is vital step since airports is the first expression of the place and destination were the travelers are spending significant amount of time in this place. She added that visa facilitation and restriction in the Arab world could affect the tourism growth.
Although several speakers stressed on the visa facilitation affect, other speakers said visa facilitation in the Arab world has become easier and better than the past five years.
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