This was expressed by Hakim Al Tamini, Marketing of Visit Jordan, within the framework of the International Tourism Fair of Madrid (Fitur Madrid), and added that “for Petra it is an important platform to be one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, because obviously people are curious and interested in knowing the Wonders of the World, but in addition to that Petra is a magical, unique place.”
In that sense he stressed “and since 2007, when it was voted as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, Petra has had a very big growth boom. There were three important booms that marked Petra’s growth, the first was the Indiana Jones movie, the second the peace treaty of 94 and the third was when she was chosen as one of the New 7 Wonders of the World.”
Petra is the anchor of tourism in Jordan
Hakim Al Tamini also highlighted that “Petra is the anchor of Jordanian tourism, because 99% of people when you mention Jordan the first thing that comes to mind is Petra. And we capitalize on that, so that people come to visit our country, but so that they also have the opportunity to see what else there, because Petra is the anchor but Jordan is much more than Petra, it has a lot of beauty to show.”
As for whether they have had more visits and investments since 2007, the tourism official said that “of course, the more people come to Petra, the more demand there is, the more people want to make hotels and investments. Petra is the third city with the most hotels in Jordan, and investments have also been made in restaurants, gastronomy, services, and everything that has to do with tourism.”
Regarding the expectations for 2025, Hakim Al Tamini explained that “2023 was the year with the most tourists in our history, at the end of 2023 and 2024 there was a significant drop of almost 80% of Western markets and to a lesser extent in other regions as well, due to neighboring conflicts. We hope that in 2025 we will recover (downslad) what we have lost in 2024 and we hope that there will be peace in the region and we can all benefit from the beauty of traveling.”
Finally, the Jordanian tourism official invited everyone to visit their country, “come and visit Jordan, leave the prejudices aside and as in every trip, allow the destination to let you go. Jordan has a great town, the people are very friendly. Everyone says that the best thing about Jordan is the people and I don’t say it because I’m Jordanian, but because I’ve lived it too.”