Tunisian Minister of Tourism Tigany Hadad rejected the idea of benefit of Tunisia or any tourist destination in the region from the events that are currently taking place in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, as regards of tourism. He confirmed that such events are affecting the region as a whole, as the region is intermingling and that any event would affect the entire region.
In a press conference he held in Cairo on his transit route to Syria he expressed his hope that the entire world would be a peace oasis as terrorism and extremism are the first enemy of tourism any place in the world, while stability is the real support for tourism industry.
He said that there are many impedes that face the inter-Arab tourism and its development. He pointed out that Arab media has a great role in this impediment due to the fact that it does not exert the adequate effort in familiarizing of the tourism treasures in the Arab countries.
He added that Arab Ministers of Tourism demanded of necessity of having a joint meeting that comprises Ministers of Tourism, Information, Interior and Transportation for employing efforts of these ministries in serving development of the inter-tourism movement.
He mentioned that there are Arab countries placing tourism within priority of economic interests due to the role of tourism in developing economies of such countries like Lebanon, Egypt and Tunisia, but there are other countries are placing it in delayed ranks and do not give it the enough attention.
The Tunisian Minister of Tourism criticized the meeting of G8 and the decisions they have taken as regards of the problem of climatic changes that laid down a plan reach to 50 years to handle this problem that their respective states have primarily caused.
Mr. Tigany Hadad demanded of necessity of movement of tourist decision-makers in both governmental and private sectors for handling the topic of climatic change and that everybody would participate in this confrontation, as this serious challenge can change the tourism map in the world, and particularly in the tourism countries.
Both meetings focused on tourism and development and the in depth topic of concentration was climatic changes, in addition to the role of tourism in handling poverty problem and risks that threaten tourism industry.
He added that his country is working for changing the Tourist map of exporting markets, especially after making sure of capacity of attracting European tourism, so it beamed towards Arabian Gulf, China, Japan and other promising markets.
Tunisian Tourism Minister Tigany Hadad explained that Tunisia is working for developing its own peculiar tourist product, so it would added many new types of tourism like Cultural and Sports tourism like Golf tourism following the addition of therapeutic tourism to be the second country on the world level in this domain after France.
He made it clear that his country succeeded last year in attracting 6.5 million tourists, which represent a great success in comparison to number of citizens and area of Tunisia. Moreover, he declared that Tunisia succeeded during the period from 2002 until 2006 in developing the tourist product and increasing the tourism income at a rate of 42%, which is the most important progress more than progress in number of citizens.
