Algeria Earmarks 720 Million Dollars To Modernize Tourism Industry

Algeria has set aside 56 billion dinars (560 million euros, $720 million) to modernize its hotels, spas and thermal baths, the tourism minister Mr Smail Mimoune said Thursday, as the country seeks to boost sectors besides hydrocarbons.

• “Eight thermal baths will be modernized and renovated at a cost of 12 billion dinars,” Mr Smail Mimoune said on national radio.
• “The remaining 44 billion dinars are earmarked for the renovation of public hotels, which number 58.”
• The government is currently taking several bids for the upgrades, the radio station reported.
• The Tourism minister said Algeria currently has 95,000 hotel beds — a number private-sector projects already under way aim to raise by 80,000.
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• The Algerian government is keen to find viable economic sectors other than oil and natural gas — which the country currently depends on for nearly all its cash income — and is working to draw a greater influx of national and foreign visitors to its refurbished spas and thermal baths.