Jordan In Petra tourists reconnect with the remains of antiquity

Jordan: In Petra, tourists reconnect with the remains of antiquity

By Le Figaro with AFP

Posted yesterday at 10:30am, updated yesterday at 3:11pm

A group of tourists in Petra (Jordan), December 2022. Khalil MAZRAAWI / AFP

After surviving torrential rains and the pandemic, the ancient capital of the Nabataeans is seeing record visitor numbers.

Millennial but still so popular. Surrounded by his camels in Petra, Jordan’s spectacular archaeological wonder, nestled at the bottom of a desert gorge, Hussein Bdoul smiles: the tourists really are back. After years of the Covid pandemic turning the fabled ‘Pink City’ into a ghost town, this father of seven is back at work offering visitors rides on his decorated animals.

“Tourism has picked up again and the number (of tourists) is even greater,” says Bdoul, 35, dressed in a Bedouin costume and a red keffiyeh covering his long black hair. “During the coronavirus pandemic, we didn’t see anyone in Petra,” he adds. A disaster for the city where “90% of residents work in tourism,” he says.

Jordan’s tourism authorities have confirmed the resumption of activity in this famous ancient city, which attracted 900,000 visitors last year, a figure close to the previous record of one million set in 2019. In total, Jordan welcomed 4.6 million visitors in 2022, nearly four times what it was in 2020, and grossed the country $5.3 billion.

The capital of the pink cliffs

Nestled between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea, where influences of ancient Eastern traditions and Hellenistic architecture mingle, Petra is famous for its magnificent temples carved into pink cliffs. The site, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in an online poll in 2007.

They date from around 300 BC. JC, the city was the capital of the Nabatean kingdom. The site of Petra is rich in tombs and temples carved into the pink sandstone cliffs, earning it the nickname “Pink City”. This ancient city remained unknown in the West until a Swiss explorer discovered it in 1812. “The place and the colors are amazing,” marvels a French student, Alia, 16, who takes a break from her studies to visit a souvenir stand with her mother.

About 1,700 people make a living from tourism in Petra as tourist guides, souvenir sellers or by showing tourists around the site on donkeys, horses, camels or even electric wheelchairs. “We breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the tourists coming back,” says a young drink vendor, Muhammad Samahin, seated on woven mats in the Moon Cave near the famous treasury.

The tourist challenge

For Suleiman Farajat, head of Petra’s Regional Development and Tourism Authority, the return of tourism after the pandemic has surpassed all expectations. At the peak of the pandemic, Petra, which is 230 km south of the Jordanian capital Amman, had “days when there were no tourists”.

The revival of tourism has been supported by official advertising campaigns to open up new foreign markets, but also by offers for cheap airline tickets and the provision of new hotel rooms, explains Suleiman Farajat.

Petra now has 4,000 hotel rooms and permits have been granted for the construction of three new five-star hotels, meaning that capacity will soon almost double since 2019. “If this continues, within three to four years, we could reach the threshold of two million tourists to Petra” per year, this Jordanian official starts.

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