ASEZA Chief Commissioner, Lebanese tourist delegation discuss cooperation

Aqaba: Chief Commissioner of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), Nayef Al Fayez, received a Lebanese delegation representing 24 offices of tour operators and travel agencies. The delegation is visiting Jordan in cooperation with the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) and the private sector. The meeting covered ways of cooperating and attracting more tourists to Jordan in general and Aqaba in particular. Al Fayez spoke about ASEZA's efforts to draw Lebanese tourists during the meeting, which was also attended by Peter Marji, Director of Tourism at ASEZA, and Khalid Al-Kilani, JTB's representative in the Lebanese market. Al Fayez highlighted the facilities that ASEZA offers visitors to enjoy the unique tourist product in its various forms in Aqaba, the head of the Golden Triangle (Aqaba, Wadi Rum, and Petra), including environmental tourism, diving, adventures, recreation, and a variety of water sports. For their part, the Lebanese tourism agencies lauded the tourism product in Aqaba city as a major tourist destination on the regional and international levels, stressing the importance of establishing direct flight routes from Aqaba to Beirut, especially during the active tourism seasons in Aqaba. Marji highlighted ASEZA's marketing plan for the tourism product by inviting bloggers, social media activists, and chefs to visit Jordan as part of special influencer trips for food and cooking specialists to focus on the diversity of services related to food, beverage, and hospitality in Jordan (food tourism) during 2022 and 2023. He added that ASEZA is maintaining follow-up through the Tourism Directorate, which provides tourism and travel agencies with new and updated information about traveling to Jordan, in addition to providing them with pictures and short videos about key tourist sites, as well as continuous communication with influencers on social media platforms and various media outlets, and publishing information and pictures about Jordan during their previous visits, noting that the number of touri sts from Lebanon to Jordan in 2019-2023 amounted to about 60,000 tourists. Source: Jordan News Agency