Over 500,000 tourists visit Algeria, revenues do not exceed $ 200 million, Bachir Messaitfa says
الشروق أونلاين
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Bachir Messaitfa, Former State Secretary to the Prime Minister, in charge of Prospective and Statistics. Photo: archive
Government’s ideas about the need to diversify the national economy today outside hydrocarbons came too late, especially after government did not give attention to calls to find the real tools to achieve economic take-off to develop tourism which revenues do not exceed $ 200 million, which is a small number when compared to neighboring countries, Economic expert and former State Secretary in charge of Statistics and Prospective, Bachir Messaitfa, said on Monday at the High School of Journalism, in Algiers conference on the “Importance of media in promoting Algeria’s image”.
“Experts called upon government to the need to diversify the national economy before the current crisis relating to the collapse of the oil price, but did not find attention by the government, which ideas came too late.”
In his intervention entitled “Tourism Management, for diversifying the economy” added; “Ending the crisis and activating the economy, requires a combination of factors, mainly the study of the status of the current economy and determine the vision of the future in diversification, based on the 28 indicators, including tourism.”
“Algeria’s contribution in the International Tourism is estimated by 1%, as Algeria is ranked 138 in attracting tourists from among 145 countries, and its contribution to the country’s economy for the ratio that does not exceed 8%, compared to Morocco and Tunisia, which ranked 42 and 37.”
“Number of real tourists is not available due to the absence of tourism data and indicators, as most visitors of Algeria, are Algerian immigrants, or those who travel abroad and come back, and this is what refuted the government figures which talked about reaching the proportion of tourists, which number does not exceed more than a million tourists annually. Which does not exceed more than 500,000 tourists. It is a very small number when compared to Morocco, where tourism revenues reached $ 1.3 billion and Egypt $ 9 billion.”
