HE Tunisian Minister of Tourism and Handicraft, Salma Loumi Rkik, revealed a number of new Qatari tourist projects that will be established in Tunisia along with other projects that are currently underway.
Speaking during a press conference on Tuesday on the occasion of her visit to Doha, the Tunisian minister said there are tourism projects in Tunisia for Qatari investors, including a mega project worth $300 million that will see a resort built over 15 hectares in Gammarth area northern the Tunisian capital. The resort comprises a five-star hotel, a 5000-seater conference hall and residential villas.
She said the Qatari projects are nothing new to Tunisia, pointing to Qatari Diar's project in Tozeur, which will open in 2018 and comprises a desert resort at a total cost of $80 million.
Rkik said her visit to Doha comes at the end of a Gulf tour that also included Saudi Arabia and UAE and aims to promote the Tunisian tourism market and offer a briefing on the main features of tourism in her country in addition to promoting the Arab tourism investment forum, which will be held in Tunisia in October.
In this regard, she highlighted the deep ties between Tunisia and Qatar, hailing them as historic and excellent and adding that they saw great progress in the wake of the Tunisian uprising in 2011. She commended Qatar's supportive stance for Tunisia since the uprising and until the moment.
The Tunisian minister said her presence in Doha is an opportunity to invite Qatari investors to visit Tunisia and invest in its promising tourism sector that is recovering after the hit it took in 2015 after the terrorist attacks that targeted two of its major attractions.
Rkik said the Tunisian tourism is improving again according to a new strategic vision that pays attention to the quality of the tourism services, noting that her country welcomed 5.7 million tourists in 2016, expecting the number to surpass 6.5 million this year.
HE the Tunisian minister said her visit to Qatar also aims to promote her country as a tourism destination for Qataris thanks to its natural and civilizational features, with nearly 40,000 historical sites and a coastline that extends for 1,200 kilometers.
She said that Tunisia is a major destination for health tourism, with nearly 500,000 people visiting it every year for health and cosmetic services in the different Tunisian hospitals and centers, which is, she added, a tourism type that Gulf citizens may wish to learn about and in return Tunisia wants to promote.
Meanwhile, Rkik highlighted the depth of Tunisian-Qatari cooperation ties that saw great progress in the past five years, which was evident in the intensity of exchanged visits among senior officials of both countries since 2011.
The Tunisian official said such visits helped in pushing forward the existing strong ties between the two fraternal countries and creating a quantum leap in terms of bilateral cooperation, particularly at the level of Qatari financial and investment support for Tunisia, with Doha becoming the biggest Arab investor in Tunisia and the second internationally behind France.
Up to 3 million Arab tourists visited Tunisia in 2016, making up nearly a half of the total number of tourists, with Algerian and Libyan tourists leading the list.
Rkik stressed her country's keenness on developing Arab tourism and lifting any obstacles that might hinder it, while working to find the required means to boost cooperation among Arab countries and activate the role of the private sector in this regard.

Source: QNA