Damascus-Sana
During the year 2020, the Ministry of Tourism intensified its efforts to rehabilitate a number of tourist facilities, grant licenses to construct others, treat unlicensed ones, support the establishment of development projects, and promote domestic and popular tourism in parallel with work to strengthen investment and tourism cooperation relations with friendly countries by signing a number of memoranda of understanding and agreements.
The Ministry contributed in supporting the health sector to address the Corona virus by placing a number of hotels at the disposal of the Ministry of Health to be used as accommodation centers during the quarantine period.
According to the Ministry's data and its accomplished work during the current year, which SANA obtained a copy of, the number of new tourism facilities that entered service reached 87 facilities at an investment cost estimated at 89 billion Syrian pounds, in addition to granting construction licenses for 6 tourism projects, feeding and two tourism construction licenses according to the B system. OT) for an open beach project in Wadi Qandil in Latakia and the Marina project on Tartous Corniche.
As for tourism investment, the Ministry approved investment contracts during the current year for 9 sites of the projects presented at the Tourism Investment Market Forum 2019, with an investment cost of 1,000 billion pounds distributed over the governorates of Damascus, Aleppo, Tartous and Lattakia.
With regard to hotels belonging to the Ministry, Damah Rose, Sheraton Damascus, Shahba Aleppo, Lamira Resort and Safir Homs Hotel, the value of its revenues rose from the beginning of the year until the end of last October to about 9 billion pounds.
The Ministry completed the necessary renovation and replacement works for the international hotels owned by it, which had a positive impact on the results of the hotels business, noting that the number of Arab and foreign visitors to Syria until last October reached 450 thousand people.
In the field of activating cooperation with international bodies to stimulate foreign tourism, the Ministry signed 7 memoranda and agreements of understanding with international and local bodies in this regard. It also participated in the meeting of the Middle East Regional Committee 46 held by the World Tourism Organization via video technology due to the precautionary measures to address the Corona virus, and coordination with the authorities was also made. Concerned with tourism in Russia, Iran, India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cuba, Tatarstan, Crimea, Jordan and Iraq to enhance investment and tourism cooperation relations.
The Ministry issued a number of decisions that serve the production and development process, including those related to licensing establishments outside the organizational chart and granting some exemptions and facilities for tourism projects and establishments that were closed as a result of measures to address Corona, in addition to a decision that includes approval of the draft decision to establish the Syrian Company for Tourism Management Private Contribution and the decision to exempt projects Tourism affected by terrorist attacks from building permit fees, including fees added to them.
In the field of tourism marketing and promotion, the Ministry participated in the Vitor International Tourism and Travel Exhibition 2020 in Spain, and it also carried out more than 40 promotional chapters for tourist attractions in Arabic and English, promoted tourism and hotel education and training, and held the October International Cycling Race in Lattakia villages.
The Ministry launched an afforestation campaign in Jabal Al-Hurra in Lattakia as part of the afforestation campaigns in areas affected by fires, and the Ministry provides support for many civil, youth and community activities and initiatives to spread awareness of the importance of strengthening the Syrian cultural identity.
In the field of tourism planning, the Ministry worked on rehabilitating the tourist routes of the Citadel of Damascus and Salah al-Din, receiving the first phase of the planning work for the Wadi Qandil region in Lattakia and preparing a comprehensive urban planning study for the Amrit area, and the work of installing a prefabricated building as a tourist information center and a headquarters for the tourist police in Bludan in Rural Damascus was completed.
A popular tourism project for the Syrian Company for Transport and Tourism was opened in the southern Raml region in Lattakia, the expansion and improvement works of the Rose Marie Dreikish Hotel were carried out, and a popular tourist park project was completed in the Mantara Dam in the Quneitra Governorate.
As for education and training, the Ministry has developed and modernized tourist and hotel education curricula, provided institutes and schools with equipment and supplies, opened a technical institute for tourism and hotel sciences in the Qudsaya suburb of Damascus countryside, equipped and rehabilitated the hotel vocational school in Al-Waer area in Homs, in addition to implementing 75 training courses in various tourism and hotel specialties.
The Ministry also issued a decision on the licensing mechanism to grant a qualification certificate for the hotel specialization in the private tourism and hotel training centers, in addition to following up the construction of the buildings of the Technical Institute for Tourism and Hotel Sciences and the Hotel School in Aleppo and Daraa. The ministry also created service centers for citizens in several regions.
With regard to monitoring facilities, the Ministry conducted inspection tours, organized violating controls and closed a number of violating facilities.
In the field of tourism offices work, 56 tourism and travel offices were licensed, 56 offices were revoked, licenses were revoked, 32 new tour guides were granted, license renewed for 21 previously licensed guides, 104 business cards were granted to tourist guides, 185 various tourism activities were assigned to tourism chambers and elections were held for the boards of directors of chambers of tourism. The Federation and the issuance of the decisions related to the chambers' offices for the fourth session 2020-2024 and the elections to the Federation’s Board of Directors.
Sakina Muhammad