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Sudan to make tourism important economic resource

Xinhua, November 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

The upcoming visit of a senior United Nations (UN) official indicates a promising future of Sudan's tourism sector, the country's tourism minister said Tuesday.

The Secretary-General of United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is expected to visit Sudan during Nov. 13 and 15 to take part in a training session on tourism and attend the inauguration of the Tourism and Shopping Festival in Sudan's Red Sea State.

This will be the first visit of its kind for a UNWTO senior official to Sudan in 11 years, which comes after the UNWTO decided in October 2015 to lift the sanctions imposed on Sudan's tourist and antiquities resources 11 years ago.

"The visit of the UNWTO Secretary-general constitutes an important event after 11 years of sanctions by the organization on Sudan," Mohammed Abu Zaid Mustafa, Sudan's Tourism Minister, told a press conference in Khartoum Tuesday.

"There is great development in the relationship between Sudan and the UNWTO after Sudan's due debts have been settled," he noted. "Sudan will benefit from the preferential characteristics provided by the organization to its membership to help develop tourism."

The minister reiterated the concerns over expanding the tourist activity and holding festivals to reflect the country's tourist potentialities, facilitate entry of foreign tourists and build necessary infrastructures.

Sudanese government used to hold annual tourism festivals such as the famous Red Sea Tourism and Shopping festival which is held in November each year.

Additionally, the Sudanese government is also working to reactivate domestic tourism, as the tourism ministry has launched a program titled "My Sudanese Vacation" to inform the beauty of the homeland.

The program, a partnership between the ministry and the private sector companies, tends to encourage domestic summer tourism for university students, civil society organizations and businessmen.

According to the ministry's latest statistics, the tourism revenues for 2015 amounted to 930 million U.S. dollars, while the number of tourists jumped up to 700,000.

The ministry expected the number of tourists to rise by seven percent next year due to the inauguration of continental roads linking Sudan and many neighboring countries in addition to the signing of agreements with different countries in field of tourism.

"There are requirements that need to be available if the government wants to reactivate the tourism sector," Abdul-Raouf Mohamed Abdalla, a Sudanese researcher in field of tourism and archaeology, told Xinhua.

"The priorities are represented in stopping the war and achieving peace and providing an attractive tourist climate, where Sudan is still suffering from the effect of war," he added.

The wars which hit wide parts of Sudan during the past two decades prevented the Sudanese from showing the natural potentialities which make of their country a tourist destination.

Sudan has recently been working to reactivate the tourism sector to assume its natural position as an important resource for the country which has been facing economic difficulties following the separation of South Sudan in 2011 which took away around 70 percent of Sudan's oil revenues. Endit