Petra Tours Chairman honored for role in Jordan tourism

Secretary-General of the Ministry of Tourism Mr Farouq Al Hadidi, JSTTA Chairman Haider Ziyadat and top travel agents like former Tourism Minister Munir Nassar attended the ceremony and paid tribute to Kawar who helped create a vibrant tourism sector, characterized by well-built infrastructure that today contributes around 14 percent to the country's Gross Domestic Product and employees 33,000 people.

"I am very touched by you all for this honoring," Mr Kawar told the gathering. "We have come along way in establishing a good, prosperous and dependable tourism industry in the Kingdom, and credit must go to you for working hard to bring tourists from all over the world to Jordan, a place of great culture, religions and where history's civilization had passed through," he added.

Mr Kawar praised the role of HM King Abdallah for his encouragement and belief in creating a strong tourism industry that would image Jordan to the world as a country with a great history and were cultures and businesses can meet to create a fusion for the benefit of mankind.

Petra Tours was established in 1965, at a time when there was no more than a handful of tour operators in Amman, but the then energetic Kawar believed he would contribute in building a tourism industry that would build bridges among people with different cultures who would visit the Kingdom, and vice-versa enable Jordanian to travel abroad.

Little did he know that decades latter the Jordanian tourism industry would boomerang into a multi-million and possibly billion affair, with huge tourism infrastructure being built all over the country. Indeed, investments jumped to JD1.552bn in tourism projects between 1996 and 2006.

Petra Tours portion of these developments are not inconsiderable since as well as tourism providers they had become hotel investors in prime touristic locations in such places as the Dead Sea, Petra and Aqaba.

It is these traits that were recognized when the JSTTA honored Nasser Kawar for his services to tourism.