“I see more tourists every year,” smiles tourist guide Abdul Razzak Homsi when asked about the prospects of his business. “Three years ago, museums in Damascus were empty. Now Europeans are queuing at the gates.”
Statistics from the Syrian Ministry of Tourism show that in the first five months of this year, the number of “tourist arrivals” in Syria rose to 3.1 million, a whopping 65 percent increase compared to the same period a year earlier. The figure is divided into three groups: Arab foreigners (1.7 million), non-Arab foreigners (900,000) and Syrian expatriates (600,000). Although “tourist arrivals” is a loose definition — the ministry simply measures all arrivals and calls them tourists — unless Damascus suddenly became the world business conference capital, tourists are evidently flocking into Syria in large numbers.
Tourism was “a bit static” in the years following the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, says Osama al-Nouri, general manager of Damascus-based tour operator TransAsia Travel and Tourism, “but the past couple of years have witnessed the return of Syria, and Lebanon, as major destinations.”
The word’s out in the West
Syria sees two types of visitors, says Nouri: Arabs who come for recreation, shopping and, to a lesser extent, religious sites, and Westerners — mostly Europeans — who seek the mystique of the Orient in Syria’s rich history, culture, world-class architectural sites like Palmyra and Krak des Chevaliers, and traditional Arab hospitality.
Although the majority of tourists visiting Syria still come from the Arab/Gulf market — 59 percent of all arrivals in 2009 — people from outside the Arab world are increasingly finding their way to Damascus. According to Nouri, “whereas the Arab market is increasing by 6 to 9 percent per year, numbers of European and American tourists are going up by more than 25 percent per year.”
Potential for profit
With all these tourists come opportunities for local business. Tourist guide Homsi is one of 889,000 Syrians currently employed in the tourism sector — 11.5 percent of the work force. Over the past 18 years, he has slowly moved away from guiding flocks of tourists to teaching cultural heritage management at the Damascus Tourist Institute, and is now converting an old Damascene house into an art gallery where, he says, he will be able to combine his love for all things art and antique with commercial activity.
“Whenever I take tourists to see Syrian culture and art, they are very interested,” he says. “And surprised: they simply have no idea it exists.”
There are several other entrepreneurially-minded traders in Damascus’ tourist markets angling for original ways to make a buck from visitors, such as the owner of a shop called “Beebread,” who explains in a conspiratorial voice that Syria has many unique plants with medicinal qualities that Westerners have yet to discover. His shop sells low-sugar honey to locals, and has a growing customer-base in tourists buying honey-based facial cream and organic digestive pills manufactured according to a secret recipe.
But Homsi and Beebread’s innovative tactics are an exception among Syria’s tourism traders, who mostly follow the tried-and-tested business model of the clustered shawarma shop. Along Damascus’s biblical Straight Street, for example, most salesmen seem content to eek out a living selling the same pots and pans as their neighbors do. Although the luxury five-star Tadamora Palace hotel recently opened in Palmyra, commercial activity at the country’s prime archeological site still revolves mainly around groups of Bedouin that ride around on old motorbikes selling soda cans and checkered shawls. As one wandering tourist put it recently, “where are the hot-air balloon rides, the mountain bike rentals?”
“There is a huge gap” between potential and reality, admits Nouri, who explains that locals’ reluctance to exploit tourism possibilities may be a legacy of the past, when the state was the one and only player in many fields. Nowadays, he says, “business opportunities are enormous, particularly in the areas of eco-tourism and event management. The sites, accommodation and restaurants are there, but there are more and more people that are looking for activities like festivals, theater shows… the Ministry of Tourism is genuinely interested in promoting such activities.”
Bedroom boom
One sector that has been doing particularly well is the hotel industry, although the year saw a bit of a slow start, with occupancy at 49 percent in the first quarter of 2010 as opposed to 61 percent a year earlier. Though small luxury boutique hotels have popped up all over the Old City and the last decade has seen considerable investment in high-end hotels, there is still room to grow, says Julian Crane, director of marketing for the Damascus Four Seasons Hotel.
“There is a big opportunity for mid-range hotels and mid-range pricing,” he says. “There are not enough four-star hotels, for example.” But high-end hotels like the Four Seasons will remain in demand as well, he says, “as long as the demand for this destination in terms of commerce and leisure continues to grow. And there is no reason why it shouldn’t. Syria has an exotic mystique about it that people will continue to be interested in.”
Tourism is fast becoming a pillar of the Syrian economy, constituting 11.2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2009 and expected to rise to 13 percent of GDP by 2019, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. Still, it is a developing industry and there are obstacles to overcome, such as a lack of infrastructure and a shortage of skilled personnel. But as long as the region stays stable — a vital prerequisite for growth mentioned by nearly everyone Executive spoke to — the sector is likely to continue to grow as a major market.
“There are 5,000 mosques, 700 churches, 50 synagogues and 10,000 archeological sites in Syria,” says Homsi. “Most of them have yet to see a tourist.”
