Tourists are deserting the Middle East, due to the war between Israel and Hamas, which particularly impacts Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.
Tourists are deserting the Middle East due to the war between Israel and Hamas , a situation likely to particularly weaken Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, whose economies are dependent on spending by international visitors. In Petra, a wonder of the Jordanian desert which attracted 900,000 tourists last year, “you will only see a few visitors, even though it was crowded” at the beginning of October, and the season was “extraordinary”, laments Amer Nezami, 46-year-old tourist guide.
“Organized trips including Jordan, the West Bank and Israel have completely stopped, and dozens of reservations for stays have been canceled, particularly for groups coming from the United States,” he told AFP. At the reception of the Petra Palace Hotel, Safi Nawafleh confirms that the number of customers in the city’s main establishments “has fallen by 25% to 50%… and some small hotels have no one.”
On October 7, the Islamist organization Hamas carried out a terrorist attack of unprecedented scale and barbarity on Israeli soil during which 1,200 people, mainly civilians, were killed, and around 240 kidnapped, according to Israel. . In retaliation, Israel bombed the Gaza Strip until the establishment of a truce of several days which expired Friday morning with the resumption of hostilities, but allowed the release of 80 Israeli hostages, including women and very young people. children. More than 15,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to unverifiable Hamas figures.
Growth before terrorism
Before the October 7 terrorist attack, the Middle East region was experiencing a tourism boom. It even recorded “the best results” compared to other international destinations between January and July 2023, according to the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), with “arrivals exceeding pre-Covid pandemic levels by 20%.
But “the war has dried up travel demands for Israel” and has “impacts on neighboring destinations, with countries suffering a heavy drop in new bookings” such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Saudi Arabia but also Turkey, summarizes Olivier Ponti, vice-president of ForwardKeys, a company which analyzes airline reservations, to AFP. Conversely, “the Spanish, Greek and Portuguese coastline seems to benefit from a redirection of requests to go out in the sun.”
Egypt affected
In a note at the beginning of November, the rating agency S&P Global Ratings estimated that Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt – “immediate neighbors” of Israel and Gaza – would “suffer the most”. She pointed out that tourism represented 26% of Lebanon’s balance of payments revenue last year, 21% for Jordan, 12% for Egypt and 3% for Israel.
“Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, several tour operators in Egypt have reported cancellations representing around half of bookings for November and December, particularly from European travelers,” and several airlines have “suspended their flights to Lebanon”, recalls S&P.
“Everything will depend on the duration of the conflict”
On Tuesday, easyJet clarified that flights to Israel, Jordan (two destinations that it has temporarily suspended) and Egypt “represent 4% of [its] capacity” in winter, and that the conflict would be felt on its financial results. The cruise line MSC also announced the cancellation of “the entire winter program” of its liners Orchestra and Sinfonia, which were to sail in the Red Sea or dock at the port of Haifa in Israel.
However, S&P does not expect “a significant decline, for the moment” in tourism in Turkey, due to its geographical distance from the conflict, or in the United Arab Emirates, where “the tourist flow already exceeds levels pre-pandemic. “We could even see some tourists diverting their planned trips to other destinations in the region to these two countries,” estimates the agency. Everything will also depend “on the duration of the conflict, and whether it widens to the region,” warns S&P.
