The Tunisian Ministry of Tourism said tourists arriving in Tunisia have reached around 592,000 in Q1 2019, which is an increase of around 17.4 percent compared to the same period in 2018.
This positive development provided up to TND787.8 million (around USD262.6 million) of hard currency revenues – an increase of 35.1 percent.
During a conference under the slogan of national dialogue on tourism, Minister of Tourism Rene Trabelsi said that the huge turnover of traditional European markets and the increase in applications to the Tunisian destinations were the reasons behind the promising results at the beginning of this season.
The total of arriving Europeans rose around 22.3 percent, Trabelsi added.
The French market registered a 24.7 percent, while the English market relapsed due to the terrorist attack of Sousse in 2015 that killed 39 tourists, of which the majority were British. The Dutch market developed around 13.5 percent.
On the level of Maghreb, Algeria came first with around 496,000 Algerians visiting Tunisia by end of last March while 473,000 Libyans had Tunisia as their destination, around 32.2 percent increase.
Trabelsi expects that more positive growth in the coming period is based on the bookings of global travel agencies.
Tunisia seeks to attract 1 million French tourists, 640,000 Russian tourists, and 390,000 German tourists this season. It forecasts to host around nine million tourists overall, exceeding last year’s numbers.
Tourism revenues jumped in 2018 to USD1.36 billion as the country saw the arrival of a record 8.3 million visitors, according to data from the ministry.
The number of arrivals from Europe is close to what was recorded before 2011, a sign that the sector is recovering. The sector generates about 400,000 jobs and accounts for eight percent of Tunisia’s gross domestic product (GDP).
