Four cruise ships carrying around 12,000 tourists are scheduled to drop their anchor in Aqaba on Thursday. It is according to Director General of the Aqaba Company for Ports Operation and Management Mansour Gogazeh, Aqaba, one of the port cities in Jordan, will get more tourists this week that will make a boom of the region’s tourism industry.
As well as spending time in Aqaba, some 330km south of Amman, the tourists’ itinerary includes destinations such as Petra and Wadi Rum, he added, noting that three of the ships will dock in the old port, while the fourth will anchor in the new southern port.
The number of international visitors to Aqaba during this year’s first quarter rose by an estimated 10 per cent, compared with the same period in 2018.
The Gulf of Aqaba is warm year round, with an average temperature of 24°C, according to the Royal Marine Conservation Society of Jordan, which indicated that Jordan’s coastline represents the northernmost outcropping of coral reefs in the world.
While in Petra, most of the international and Gulf tourists will explore the ancient city for half a day, before heading to Wadi Rum, where they typically take a two to four hour jeep ride, followed by dinner at a Bedouin camp.
