Obviously, the tourist indicators for the current year have seen a noticeable improvement both in the number of arrivals, and overnight stays recorded in all the hotels across the Republic.
It is in this context that the Tunisian Ministry of Tourism and Handicrafts announced on Wednesday, October 23, 2019, that Tunisia has hosted 7.5 million tourists from the beginning of the year, until 10 October, i.e. an increase of 14.8% over the same period of the previous year.
Tourist receipts have risen by more than 41% during this period, reaching 4.6 billion dinars.
In addition, the Tunisian Tourism Department has recorded more than 25 million overnight stays in different regions of the country, more than 6 million of which were recorded in the Djerba-Zarzis region (+ 5% compared with 2018).
Similarly, the regions of Monastir-Skanes, Yasmine Hammamet, Tunis and Sousse saw an 18% increase in overnight stays during this period.
Algerians are still in the lead!
According to the figures provided by the Tourism Department, Algerians remain the first visitors to Tunisia, with two million, and this in the first nine months of 2019.
This trend is not new and the Algerian tourists had confirmed it again in 2017, since they were 2.5 million to visit the country. The seaside hotels of Hammamet, Sousse and Monastir are flooded every year by Algerians.
On the other hand, the same source indicates that the number of Libyans who visited Tunisia during the same period is of the order of 1.4 million.
They are followed by Tunisian expatriates with (1.1 million tourists).
In total, 3.5 million Maghreb tourists visited Tunisia during this period. Over the first nine months of 2019, total overnight stays reached 24 million, up 12%, said the same source.
Having taken to the road as soon as he took office as Minister of Tourism, René Trabelsi travelled throughout the continents to give back to Tunisia the status it had more than eight years ago.
And it seems that he has been successful with a track record that he describes as one in which tourism activity is on the road to recovery and the number of visitors has begun to return to its pre-crisis level.
There are still two months left for Minister Trabelsi to keep his promise of nine million tourists for the current year.
That bet remains always feasible and achievable, according to more than one professional, despite Thomas Cook’s recent bankruptcy case.
It should be recalled that the debts of British group Thomas Cook to Tunisian hotels amounted to 60 million dinars. This bankruptcy has affected 40 hotels in Tunisia.
