Tourist Diversity And The Factors Encouraging it

Tourist Investments In Syria will flourish again

Tourism is an old human trend that developed with time. Scientific advance, the development of transportation, and the hard labor of the present way of living, necessitated the development of tourism as an opportunity for relaxation, for enjoying the beauty of nature, and for enhancing the cultural awareness of the human civilizations, for satisfying an insight curiosity of knowing the traditions and habits of other peoples. We can say now that the world is living the third revolution, taking into consideration the agricultural was the first one, the industrial as the second , and the information as the newest and the fourth revolution. According to the expectations of the futurist John Yanbezt the twenty first century will be a century of three service revolutions : communications, information and traveling and tourism.

Syria is at the threshold of entering the regional race in the sector of tourism especially that it has a strategic location and unique tourist treasures things that qualify her to win the race although there are countries that occupy advanced positions in this course.

Tourist diversity in Syria is one of the most important factors of attracting tourists, namely its moderate atmosphere enabling it to be visited all round the year, its nature which has the mountains, the planes, the desert, the rivers, the lakes and the sea, its historical treasures rarely found in other countries:

Ancient cities, castles, citadels, forts, in addition to the religious Christian and Moslem sites: (whose monasteries, churches, and mosques) are still living witnesses on the various civilizations that flourished on its land.

There are also other factors that encourage tourist investment in Syria:

– Syria is a connecting point between three continents. It is neither a petrol nor an industrial country, Therefore it finds it necessary to depend on tourism as a strategic option.

– Syria is a country of coexistence and religious tolerance.

– Syria is a country of excellent and cheap labor force.

– Syria has a good and efficient infrastructure.

– Syria receives escalating numbers of tourists every year.

– Syria issued governmental decrees and decisions to encourage foreign investments and protect them.

– Projects in Syria are cost effective and proficient.

– Syria offers more than one hundred projects in the Syrian governorates for tourist investments. It seems that these factors began to give fruits and change into reality in both the public and the private sector.

Minister of Tourism Mohammad Rami Martini said in the opening Forum of Tourism Investment 2019 held in Tartous recently that the opportunities available to investors through these sites are very important and may not be repeated in the coming days and therefore the bold investor is the one who deserves the best results and those who are late will not reap anything. Martini explained that the ministry is in the process of issuing new decisions in conjunction with this forum, including the amendment of resolution 198 and resolution 208 and others in order to give investors good advantages and improve the return on their investments and provide them with financing, in addition to self-financing for banks to give priority to finance profitable tourism projects and support investment in this area.The Minister of Tourism praised the experience of tourism investment forums that started in 2005 as one of the fruits of the extraordinary meeting chaired by President Bashar al-Assad of the Supreme Council of Tourism on September 22, 2004, stressing that the reconstruction of what was destroyed by terrorism is the title of the country economy in the next stage .

Haifaa Mafalani