This is the year of real recovery for Tunisia’s tourism industry. Moevenpick Hotels and Resorts just today said it was cementing its stronghold in Tunisia with the take over of a contemporary hotel in the coastal city of Sfax. The Swiss hospitality firm signed an agreement with Société Touristique du Sud to manage the Plaza Sfax & Spa Hotel, an upscale property in a prime city center location on Rue Khalid Ibn Walid, close to the historic Medina. The hotel is a short walk to the convention center, another sign also MICE, the meeting and incentive industry is expected to look at Tunisia again.
Plaza Sfax & Spa Hotel, Tunis
It appears Tunisia’s tourism industry finally is on the upswing again. After several high profile terror attacks on tourist centers this North African Country is trying hard to become a favorite destination again for the Europeans. In the past Germans and French had dominated visitor numbers to this Mediterranean country.
“There is a significant improvement,” Tourism Minister Selma Elloumi Rekik told AFP media last week. Visitor numbers topped the first five months of 2014, largely due to rising Russian and Chinese arrivals.
The jihadist attacks of 2015 devastated Tunisia’s tourism industry. An attack at the National Bardo museum in Tunis and another targeting a beach resort in Sousse together killed 59 foreign tourists and a Tunisian guard.
But visitor arrivals this year have reached 2.3 million, an increase of over 20 percent from the same period last year and 5.7 per cent higher than for the same period in 2010.
“This is the year of real recovery,” said Elloumi.
