Jordan's recently unveiled five-year national tourism strategy foresees the private sector playing a growing role in the sector, with the eventual goal of doubling the industry's contribution to GDP. The tourism sector's contribution to GDP reached 12.4 percent in 2010. According to the National Tourism Strategy (NTS) 2011-15, the government estimates that the public sector will spend JD152 million ($215.5 million) and the private sector will spend JD38 million ($53.6 million) over the five-year period. “Jordan will continuously work on creating a more supportive business environment to enable successful investments in the tourism sector, as Jordan has great potential which investors can help us reach, and we in return can help investors reach their potential and contribute to economic prosperity,” said Haifa Abu Ghazaleh, the minister of tourism and antiquities, at the plan's unveiling in early August. The NTS 2011-15 builds on the foundation laid for the sector by first tourism development plan, the NTS 2004-10, which was based on four main pillars guiding growth and development. The NTS 2011-15 keeps the same four-pillar framework, though the focal points have been slightly amended to reflect the success of the previous plan and current goals. The first pillar of the NTS 2011-15 is marketing and promotion, which is where the government plans to increase its efforts in social and digital media to attract new, higher-yielding markets. The goals set out under this pillar for 2011-15 include increasing tourist arrivals to 9.4 million, boosting overall tourism receipts to JD4.2 billion ($5.9 billion) and growing domestic receipts by 30 percent. This would continue the significant progress made between 2004 and 2010, which saw tourism arrivals increase from 5.6 million in 2004 to 8.2 million in 2010 and tourism receipts rise 247 percent, from JD943m ($1.3 billion) to JD2.42bn ($3.4 billion). BM
