JEDDAH, 17 January 2004 — Tunisia has launched a campaign to promote family tourism. “Our aim is to focus on family tourism and we’ve been especially targeting Saudi families and tourists,” Tunisian Ambassador Salahaddin Muawi said in an interview.
“We want an increasing number of families from the Kingdom, elsewhere in the Arab world and the Middle East region to visit us now that we’ve succeeded in tapping the European market,” Muawi told Arab News.
Tunisia’s new campaign for promoting family tourism in the Kingdom coincides with the upcoming Eid Al-Adha. “We want to seize the opportunity available during the post-Haj period when pilgrims start returning home. At the same time, we want Saudi tourists to visit us as fares will be highly competitive,” he said.
“We’ve already started our preparations to receive the first group of tourists that a specialized Saudi tour operator is sending. This group will surely follow many more groups,” the ambassador said.
“We’re operating three flights a day on a 254 passenger capacity aircraft. We hope to have a good load of tourists from this part of the world up to Jan. 26. Permits and other procedural steps have already been organized to operate our services between the Kingdom and Tunisia. We regularly operate two flights a week, but want to increase the frequency to six a week to meet the current demand,” he said.
Tunisia’s beaches are among its main tourist attractions, which have been drawing a large number of European visitors. “In fact, its scenic beaches have been the main attraction since tourism started flourishing in 1960s. In the recent decades, the country has focused on its diverse tourist interests.
This is in keeping with Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s appeal that the country’s tourism ought to be enriching and diverse. Today, we’ve evolved some distinguishing features that have made our tourism highly competitive, thus making it a primary destination for tourists in the region,” he said.
“An estimated five million tourists from the world over visited Tunisia last year. Saudi Arabia accounted for only around 5,000, which is why we’re promoting family tourism for them. Significantly, the promotion is being launched at a time when Tunisia is being recognized as an Arab country that is proud of its identity,” he said.
