The indicators of tourism activity in Tunisia continued their downward trend, in particular for the flow of foreign tourists which experienced a drop of 75.8% during the first quarter of 2021 against -16.6% a year earlier, according to the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) based in Tunis.
According to the Tunisian Emission Institute, these indicators covered 258,500 visitors. << This decrease concerned the different nationalities, in particular, European tourists (-80.9% against -29.6% in 2020), like the French (-79.7% against-22.4%) , the English (-93.4% against -67.6%) and the Germans (-85.3% against -34.8%) >>, adds the services of the BCT.
Likewise for North African tourists, they fell by 75.4% against -12.7% in 2020, in particular, for Algerians (-99.6% against-20.3%) and Libyans (-53, 9% versus -4.8%).
Correspondingly, underlines the BCT, overall tourist nights were down 61.4% at the end of March 2021, against -31.4% during the same period of the previous year, to stand at 826,500 units. . At the same time, tourism receipts fell by 59.9% during the first three months of 2021, against + 4.7% during the same period of 2020, reaching 372.4 million dinars. “Without currency effect,” specifies the BCT, the drop in these revenues was 60.9% against + 14.3% in 2020. ”
Who says tourists, says air transport. On this point, the BCT indicates that air passenger traffic in March 2021 showed a decline of 49.1%, year-on-year, against -59.9% during the same month a year earlier, and this in relationship with the resurgence of a third wave of COVID-19. During the first quarter of 2021, the number of passengers fell by 71.4% against -21.7% a year earlier, to reach around 450,000 passengers. “This development concerned activity on international lines (-72.8%) and, to a lesser extent, traffic on domestic lines (-44.8%)”, reports the BCT. The decrease affected the majority of airports, in particular that of Tunis-Carthage (-60.7%), Djerba (-59.3%) and Hammamet-Nfidha (-77.7%).
