Tunisia’s Tourism Is Reaching Out to America

By Delinda C. Hanley

Within the next few weeks, American theatergoers will be discovering exotic sights of Tunisia, the filming location of the “Star Wars” trilogy, in George Lucas’s forthcoming installment “Episode I.” The Tunisian desert was also the place where another box-office hit, “The English Patient,” was shot. This is expected to attract additional travel tours to Tunisia from all countries of the world including the United States.

“Tunisia will be a frequent destination for American tourists in the near future,” Minister of Tourism and Artisans Slah Maaoui promises. “We have been working toward this goal for some time but we face several obstacles, especially the fact that there is no direct air link between Tunisia and North America.”

Early on Tunisia decided to use its resources to produce a great tourism product, which consists of Tunisia’s comfortable hotels, fine restaurants, spectacular archeological sites, well-kept museums, glorious beaches, and fascinating scenery, villages, and marketplaces. Tunisia’s coastal tourism, therefore, has attracted a large European market, for many years.

Nevertheless, Maaoui explains, “In the last 10 years we have decided to diversify our product, and develop cultural tourism, realizing that great beaches aren’t enough to attract visitors from far away North America or Asia. While visitors may not travel that far for fishing, diving, swimming and spas, they will come to learn about our 3,000 years of history.”

Maaoui adds that “Within five days of the November 7 [1987 political] Change, at his first cabinet meeting, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali decided Tunisia should diversify and he launched Sahara tourism initiatives.” Visitors seeking an exotic or cultural vacation can now travel to desert oases only two hours from European snowstorms.

After sparing no effort to make Tunisia into an attractive cultural vacation destination, Tunisia’s tourism budget now also includes promotional funds. Tunisian tourism authorities hope to find new international partners, travel agencies and tour operators to bring more North American tourists to discover “Europe’s best-kept secret—Tunisia.”

In fact, the Ministry of Tourism already can refer prospective North American visitors to three tour agencies offering specialty tours. “Taste of Tunisia” is a culinary tour offered by Amelia Tours in Hicksville, NY (1-800-742-4591). The same company also offers “Golden Tunisia,” which focuses on cultural and archeological highlights, including a night in an air-conditioned tent and a visit to locations used in the filming of “The English Patient.”

Caravan-Serai, a tour agency in Seattle, WA specializing in Middle East tours, offers an extensive eight-day land tour of Tunisia with trips to castles, souqs, Roman baths, catacombs, Islamic mosques, and troglodyte houses where descendants of Berbers still live much as their ancestors did. This agency can be telephoned at 1-800-451-8097.

And, finally, Cultural Tours, in McLean, VA (1-800-826-7995), offers tours of Byzantine, Berber, Roman, and Islamic sites in Tunisia and even designs special tours for individuals or groups. Director Franceline Rudd often speaks to American audiences, inviting them to Tunisia for a delightful introduction to the hospitality of the Middle East. One of her tours will see in the year 2000 while ballooning in the desert.

Whether a visitor uses a tour group or makes his or her own way, the culinary part of the trip can include inexpensive and superb fresh fruits, fish, couscous piled with lamb or vegetables, pastries, red wine, and an unbelievable date liquor called Tibarine. There are such exotic sights as a camel in Kairouan that is enticed up a narrow flight of stairs each day with a pastry. Once the camel reaches the top of the steps he spends the rest of the day slowly pulling an ancient water wheel drawing water said to cause all who drink it to return someday. An aside for any single women looking for holiday spots—Tunisia is a place where you will feel safe. Everyone you meet makes you feel like a valued new friend.

For most Americans, to use the words of a U.S. tour operator, Tunisia has been up to now “a well-kept secret.” The word is now out. And Americans will undoubtedly constitute, in the future, a stronger component of the nearly five million tourists Tunisia attracts each year.