Tunisia in desperate bid for Italian tourists

 MILAN -- At the BIT International Tourism Fair, taking place in Milan this week, Tunisia has desperately been trying to revive its flagging tourism trade and encourage Italians once again to make the trip across the Mediterranean.

 “Tunisian tourism is in a really tough spot at the moment, like all countries,” reported the Marketing Director of the national body of Maghreb Tourism, Riad Dakhli, in a press conference for the International Board of Tourism on Thursday morning, “We’re still pretty far away from the number of tourists we used to have (500,000 Italian visitors a year)”.

 He revealed that in 2015 they fell under the threshold of even 100,000 visitors. “We haven’t seen numbers as low as this for 30 years,” he reported.  Tunisia is not giving up that easily, however.

 “We have increased the amount of security in the airports and around all of the main tourist attractions,” Mr Dakhli assured.

 After the terrrorist attacks at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis and those in the tourist resort north of Sousse, the tourism figures completely collapsed.  To facilitate the influx of Italian visitors, they are seriously hoping to strengthen the connection to and from the peninsula in 2016. 

 They will begin new flights “From Milan and Bologna to Djerba and Monastir, and from Rome to Monastir,” explained Ali Liaoui, the director general for the Italian branch of Tunisair.  “If we succeed in filling those flights, we will also consider opening other scheduled routes,” he said towards the end of the meeting. 

 From next October, however, the Costa and MSC ferry routes will be reopening, assured Dakhli.

 “And last but not least,” concluded the marketing director of the national body of Tunisian Tourism, “Between April 14-17, we have organised a reconnaissance trip for 300 Italian tour operators.”

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