The Central Bank of Jordan said the Kingdom’s tourism sector has generated JD1.099 billion ($1.552 billion) during the first seven months of 2008. The CBJ said this represents a 16% rise compared to JD949 million in the same period of 2007.

The new figures coincided with Tourism Ministry figures that show the number of visitors on package tours to the Kingdom increased in the first 7 months of the year by 60% to 287,646 compared to 180,052 tourists in the same period last year. The Ministry said the number of nights spent by visitors on package tours also rose by 60% during the same period, reaching 1.229 million overnight stays with an average stay of 5 nights per person.

European tourists topped the list of arrivals on package tours, accounting for 187,291 visitors (a rise of 68%), followed by East Asia and the Pacific with 44,722 tourists (a rise of 48%) and 37,724 tourists from the United States (a rise of 97%).

Hotel occupancy for the first half of the year rose by 23% with 1.19 million visitors spending a total of 2.68 million nights in hotels, compared to 966,090 tourists in 2007. The greatest number of nights were spent in hotels in Amman, followed by those in Petra, the Dead Sea, and Aqaba.