Jordan’s tourism sector is once again operating under difficult regional conditions. The war in Gaza, followed by wider military escalation involving Iran and the United States, has affected perceptions of the region and weakened international travel confidence. The current situation, however, raises a broader question. The issue is not only how Jordan can recover from another tourism crisis, but also whether the structure of its tourism system makes it more vulnerable whenever a regional crisis occurs.
Declining arrivals, lower hotel occupancy, reduced activity around major attractions, and greater dependence on domestic and corporate demand are visible consequences. These indicators are important, but they also point to a deeper structural issue. Jordan has experienced repeated tourism disruptions, and the pattern has become familiar. A regional crisis occurs, international perceptions deteriorate, airlines reconsider capacity, tour operators reduce programmes, demand falls, and the sector waits for conditions to improve. This may help the sector survive, but survival is not the same as resilience.
Tourism resilience should mean that a destination has sufficient diversity, connectivity, coordination, and market flexibility to continue operating when one market, route, or tourism segment is disrupted. From this perspective, Jordan’s current challenge is partly geopolitical, but it is also structural.
Jordan has a strong and diverse tourism product. Petra, Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea, Aqaba, Jerash, Madaba, the Baptism Site, Amman, and other attractions provide considerable tourism value within a relatively small geographical area. The country also has experienced tour operators, professional tour guides, established hospitality businesses, and long experience in receiving international visitors. The problem, therefore, is not simply the tourism product. Increasingly, it is access to that product.
1. Aviation as Part of Tourism Strategy
Aviation should be treated as part of tourism strategy rather than mainly as a transportation issue. When airlines suspend routes, reduce frequencies, increase fares, or change operations because of airspace restrictions, insurance costs, security assessments, or longer flight paths, the effect extends across the tourism sector.
A hotel can reduce its room rate. A tour operator can reduce its margin. Ground service providers can adjust their prices. Yet these reductions have limited impact if the cost of reaching Jordan becomes significantly higher than reaching competing destinations. A tourism product that is competitively priced inside Jordan can become expensive once airfare is added.
This issue is becoming more important because Jordan is no longer competing only with neighboring destinations. Travelers can now compare Jordan with destinations in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America within minutes. Accessibility, flight frequency, total price, perceived safety, and ease of travel all influence destination choice alongside the attractiveness of the tourism product itself.
Recent efforts to strengthen aviation cooperation with markets such as China are therefore important. Governmental and Royal diplomacy can open doors and create opportunities for greater connectivity. However, opening a route is one matter. Making it commercially sustainable is another. A route becomes sustainable when seats are sold.
2. Private Sector Led Aviation Diplomacy
This is where the Jordanian private sector should take a stronger role. Hotels, tour operators, destination management companies, transport providers, attractions, event companies, and other tourism businesses should not remain only beneficiaries of aviation policy. They should become active partners in creating the commercial conditions that make routes viable.
Jordan needs a form of private sector led aviation diplomacy based on coordinated engagement between tourism businesses and airlines, with government providing the necessary support and enabling conditions.
Individual businesses have limited negotiating power with international airlines. Collectively, however, Jordan’s tourism businesses represent significant purchasing power and destination capacity. A structured tourism and aviation consortium could negotiate seasonal seat commitments, charter operations, joint marketing arrangements, and other commercial agreements with airlines.
Market diversification should be part of the same approach. China is an important opportunity, but diversification should not mean replacing dependence on one market with dependence on another. Jordan should consider a broader portfolio that could include China, India, GCC countries, Turkey, and selected European markets, particularly travelers interested in cultural heritage, archaeology, religion, adventure, wellness, and local experiences.
Market selection should be evidence based. Jordan needs a clearer understanding of traveler profiles, seasonal patterns, booking behavior, expenditure, price sensitivity, preferred travel periods, and expected length of stay. This information can then be translated into more credible proposals to airlines.
Instead of simply telling an airline that Jordan is an attractive destination, the sector should be able to demonstrate potential passenger volumes, available hotel capacity, proposed packages, distribution partners, ground arrangements, and marketing commitments. This would shift the discussion from general destination promotion to a clearer commercial proposition.
Pricing also deserves attention. Flight, accommodation, transport, guiding, attractions, and experiences can be treated as parts of one package. This allows different businesses to make limited adjustments to their margins collectively rather than requiring the visitor to absorb every increase in airfare.
Such packages can also support longer stays. Jordan should not compete only by making short visits cheaper. It should make longer visits more valuable. Connecting Amman, Jerash, Madaba, Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba, the Dead Sea, and community experiences within carefully designed itineraries can increase visitor expenditure while distributing tourism benefits more widely.
- Treat aviation as tourism strategy, not only as transport policy
- Build a private-sector consortium with real seat and marketing commitments
- Diversify source markets instead of swapping one dependency for another
- Present airlines with passenger volumes, hotel capacity, and packages — not slogans
- Package the full trip so airfare shocks are shared across the value chain
3. From Recovery to Resilience
This approach is not only about managing the current crisis. Diversifying source markets can reduce dependence on a limited number of countries. Markets with different holiday calendars and travel seasons can also help reduce seasonality. Longer packages can increase visitor expenditure, while the inclusion of local guides, restaurants, crafts, and community based experiences can spread tourism income beyond major hotels and established destinations.
Implementation does not require another large institution. It requires coordination, commercial expertise, market intelligence, and clear responsibilities. Tourism associations and major businesses could begin by identifying a small number of priority markets and preparing realistic commercial cases for selected routes. Pilot programmes could then be tested through seasonal services, charter operations, or partnerships with existing airlines.
Their performance should be evaluated using passenger demand, length of stay, expenditure, visitor satisfaction, and commercial sustainability. Successful pilots can be expanded. Unsuccessful ones should provide evidence for adjustment rather than be continued for symbolic reasons.
- Start with a few priority markets and realistic commercial cases
- Test seasonal services, charters, or airline partnerships as pilots
- Judge success by demand, stay length, spend, satisfaction, and viability
4. A Call to Action
Jordan cannot control regional wars, international media narratives, airline insurance costs, or the perceptions of millions of potential travelers. It can, however, influence how diversified its tourism markets are, how effectively tourism stakeholders cooperate, how competitively tourism products are packaged, and how actively the private sector participates in developing air connectivity.
Government has an essential role in diplomacy, regulation, visa facilitation, infrastructure, and destination promotion. Royal Jordanian also remains strategically important to national connectivity. However, neither government nor the national carrier should carry the responsibility alone. The private sector must move from being a recipient of connectivity to becoming one of its creators.
For Jordan, tourism resilience should therefore mean more than recovering from the current crisis and waiting for regional conditions to improve. It should mean using this difficult period to address structural weaknesses that become visible with every crisis. The required shift is clear: from repeated recovery to stronger resilience, from fragmented responses to coordinated action, and from aviation dependence to aviation partnership.