Tunis — During a workshop held on Saturday in Damascus by delegates of Tunisian and Syrian tourism and travel agencies as part of a trip organized by Tunisia's flagship carrier "Tunisair" in Syria from March 5to 10 for 10 Tunisian travel agencies, it was announced that an air link between Tunisia and Aleppo (northern Syria) will be created in order to boost tourism between both countries.

M.Boutros El Assad, president of the chamber of tourism in northern Syria, said that tourism links between the Arab Maghreb region and Syria remain inadequate, which requires further boosting cooperation with Tunisair adding that Syria can be a portal for Tunisia to reach other markets. Similarly, Syria can take advantage of Tunisair services to attract the Maghribi and African markets.

For his part, Mr.Khaled Masmoudi, CEO of the Tunisian travel agency "Romulus Voyages" noted the need to showcase a new tourism product to interest the tourist. Mrs. Najet Achour Belhaj, director of travel agency "Arabel Voyages" stressed the willingness of Syrian travel agencies in organizing trips to Tunisia.

Several representatives of Syrian travel agencies expressed their willingness to bolster tourists flow on the Tunis Damascus, stressing the necessity to develop an action plan to this end, while ensuring the marketing of this product.

Mr. Kamel Abdennour, the Syrian-Jordan regional director of Tunisair noted the provision of the national airline to cooperate with tour operators and present incentive prices to encourage tourism between both countries. He highlighted the positive results made by Tunisair despite the crisis indicating that the turnover in terms of sales from Damascus increased from 2, 4% in 2009 whereas the number of passengers decreased by 7.7% in 2009 on Damascus Tunisia line compared to 2008.

In 2010, the occupancy rate reached 11% on the Tunis- Damascus -Tunis in January compared to January 2009 and 13,3% in February 2009.