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Tourism up 58% in Tunisia

September 5, 2017 at 7:11 pm

People attend the National Day of traditional dress at Avenue Habib Bourguiba in Tunis, Tunisia on March 12, 2017. ( Amine Landoulsi – Anadolu Agency )

Some 4.6 million tourists visited Tunisia in the first eight months of this year, an increase of 57.8 per cent from the same period last year, the official news agency quoted from the Tunisian National Tourist Office.

Only 2.915 million tourists visited the country in the first eight months of 2016, according to the report.

Income from the 4.6 million tourists reached 1.6 billion Tunisian dinars ($666 million), the Minister of Tourism Selma Elloumi Rekik revealed today.

She added that most of the tourists arrived from conventional Algeria, France, Germany and the UK, adding: “We hope to attract new markets.”

Read: Tunisia launches new national employment strategy

The tourism industry in Tunisia was severely affected after 38 foreign tourists were killed in a shooting attack on a hotel in Sousse in June 2015. Twenty-two tourists were killed in March of same year in an attack on Bardo National Museum in the capital Tunis.

“Tunisian tourism has recovered from the terrorist events of 2015, and has returned to its normal pace (…). The Tunisian tourism product must be diversified and improved with greater quality.”

In total, last year Tunisia hosted 5.7 million tourists who brought in a total revenue of 2.3 billion Tunisian dinars ($950 million).