The tourism sector has been at a standstill for over a year in Tunisia. Several charter planes filled with tourists from Eastern Europe landed in Djerba last week but the revival is long overdue. The situation of the hotel industry reflects the health and economic crisis that the country is going through. State of play.
On the island of Djerba, in the southeast of Tunisia, hotels are ringing hollow. Like last year. The Hasdrubal hotel reopened last December after 9 months of closure but customers are not there. Lania, the hotel receptionist confirms this: “ Since the reopening, our occupancy rate has varied between 2 and 3% ”. Same story at Rym Beach, a four-star establishment. “ We usually welcome between 700 and 800 clients at a time in the hotel, ” verifies Rabaa Bouani, the hotel’s reservation manager. “ Between 2020 and 2021, we welcomed a maximum of 150 clients at the same time ”.
“Since the reopening of our hotel, our occupancy rate has varied between 2 and 3%.” Lania, employee of the Hasdrubal hotel
Charter flights brought several hundred tourists from Eastern Europe to the island last weekend. Sign of a revival of the tourism sector? Quite the opposite according to Jamil Sayah, professor of public law and author of several books on the political situation in his country. “ These are the communication methods of the old regime, à la Ben Ali, ” he says. “ To show that all is well, we are going to look for Russian or Czech tourists, and we bring them to Tunisia almost free of charge ”.
An outdated economic model
The country has a long tradition of tourism and the offer has developed from a simple model: large hotel complexes, sun, sea, and inexpensive “all-inclusive” offers. For years, hotels have sprouted like mushrooms in Djerba, Sousse or Hammamet. Aude-Annabelle Canesse, the expert in development policies in Tunisia, explains: “ Previous governments gave a bonus to developers who built a hotel .” Many took advantage, others abused. ” With the bounty money, some built hotels that remained empty and pocketed the rest of the bounty .”
Photo taken on May 2, 2017, in Sousse, at the time of the reopening of the hotel where a terrorist attack had taken place in 2015.
This model also favors foreign economic players. “ The local economic benefits are almost non-existent ”, continues Aude-Annabelle Canesse. “All-inclusive” packages do not encourage tourists to spend. Consequently, tourists spend an average of 150 dollars during their stay in Tunisia against an average of 600 dollars elsewhere in the world. “ It is the foreign tour operators who win in the end ”, according to Aude-Annabelle Canesse.
An important sector of the economy
In terms of national economic benefits, the figures differ depending on the sources. The Tunisian Hotel Federation is advancing a contribution from the tourism sector to the tune of 14% of GDP in 2019. This contribution would be around 4% according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS). Sami Aouadi, professor of economics at the University of Tunis, relies on figures from the INS. For him, this battle of numbers is not very important. “ There are, above all, a lot of indirect jobs in banking, insurance or other sectors that depend on the hotel industry, ” explains the economist. “ It is estimated that for every person employed directly in a hotel, 1.4 people are employed indirectly ”.
“The problem is that the tourist model is dependent on the international situation, the economic situation of the country but also on hazards which do not depend on anyone such as the pandemic or terrorism.” Jamil Sayah, specialist in contemporary Tunisia
Over 480,000 people depend directly or indirectly on the sector for a living. This represents 11.5% of the Tunisian working population. Today, 27,000 of them have lost their jobs. “ The problem is that this model is dependent on the international situation, the economic situation of the country but also of hazards which do not depend on anyone such as the pandemic or terrorism ”, explains Jamil Sayah.
Worse and worse
Tunisia has recorded more than 312,747 cases of coronavirus, including almost 11,000 deaths. The health crisis is just one more crisis for Tunisian tourism. Since the mid-2000s, the financial crisis of 2008, the Jasmine revolution of 2011, the series of attacks in 2015, and then the Covid-19 crisis have successively affected the sector. Each time, the industry starts up again. The country attracted more than 9.5 million visitors in 2019 with the objective of exceeding 10 million in 2020. Last year the number of arrivals fell by 80% and tourism receipts by 64%.
A tourism sector with twists and turns?
Following the series of attacks in the country in 2015, the number of foreign tourists visiting Tunisia fell by 15%, to stand at around 5 million. If record levels were reached in 2019 (9, 4 million tourists), the year 2020 saw their number drop by 80%. 2021 shouldn’t be a good year. It will be necessary to wait until 2022 to know if the sector has held up.
The poor condition of the tourism sector affects the economy of the entire country. The budget deficit for 2021 has tripled compared to that of 2020. Almost two in five people are unemployed. “ All the indicators are currently red in Tunisia but we are used to bouncing back ”, exclaims economics professor Sami Aouadi. Jamil Sayah is more pessimistic. We would only be at the beginning of an economic crisis that will become social in the near future. “ It’s a time bomb,” according to the law professor. “ More and more people are on their own because the state can no longer help them. ”
A Tunisian delegation is currently in Washington DC to negotiate aid from the International Monetary Fund. The country had obtained a payment facility of 750 million dollars in 2020. It is now asking for an extension of 4 billion dollars. Jamil Sayah is once again not optimistic about the use of the money obtained from the loan. “ Since 2011, we have obtained money to make reforms, but in the end, this money was used to repay loans and to pay salaries. Why would we be given more money? ”He asks himself.
Another point that could play against Tunisia in Washington DC: the absence of a clear interlocutor. “ We have a prime minister who risks being overthrown at any time, a president who no longer communicates with his prime minister and a speaker of parliament who is under threat of an impeachment resolution,” says Jamil Sayah.
Confinement more compulsory for the vaccinated
Despite the reopening of borders which is looming in May, the recovery is long overdue. Reservations are not available. For Rabaa Bouani, reservation manager at the Rym Beach hotel in Djerba, the reasons for this reluctance are obvious. “ We have to reopen on May 11, but for the moment people are afraid, ” she said. “ They are afraid that future restrictions will prevent them from traveling or not being able to return home after their trip,” she continues.
Sanitary rules changed on Monday, May 3 in Tunisia. Confinement in hotels is no longer mandatory for vaccinated travelers or those who have received a dose of vaccine but have already contracted the virus. The rules for organized trips have been the same since April 19. Tourists must present a negative PCR test carried out less than 72 hours before boarding and only leave the hotels in a group.
How to revive tourism?
If the tourism model is outdated, the country especially enjoys untapped potential. “ The model will change ” hopes Sami Aouadi. “ We have the capacity to develop ecological, scientific, sporting and even medical tourism ”, according to the professor of public law. Jamil Sayah continues: “ Tunisia could highlight something other than the beach and the sun. ”For Aude-Annabelle Canesse, things have been changing since the revolution. “ We can see today that there is an emphasis on heritage ”, according to her. “ Guesthouses are opening when this was not the case before ” she continues.
“We welcome the return of tourists from Eastern Europe but they represent only a fraction of the tourists who usually come to the country.” Sami Aouadi, professor of economics at the University of Tunis
The few hundred tourists from Eastern Europe are a balm in the hearts of Tunisians but will surely not revive the hotels. ” We are delighted, but they only represent a fraction of the tourists who usually come to the country “, analyzes Sami Aouadi. “ But hey, it’s better than nothing for hotels. ”The arrival of these tourists highlights the vice in which the government finds itself while the epidemic explodes again in Tunisia. “ Either they open the borders and the Tunisians are unhappy, ” explains Jamil Sayah. “ Either they close and the tourists don’t come back,” he concludes.
