Jordan pushes pilgrimage

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
Oct. 6, 2009

[Not included: My info box of pilgrimage places]

AMMAN, Jordan- Swatting flies and kicking up dirt on a 2,000-year-old path, overheated tourists suddenly slow their steps with a revered hesitation. In a site once pocked with landmines and still couched precariously between the West Bank and Jerusalem, the visitors have reached ancient baptismal pools where, according Jordanians, Jesus was baptized along the Jordan River.

In the heart of a predominately Muslim country and in a region best known for its conflicts, Christian tourists worldwide are discovering that the paths to their religious heritage are not so hard to reach.

And while international travel destinations have seen tourism dollars plummet due to a global economic downturn and the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus, Jordan's figures have grown as tourists uncover the country's lesser-known secrets.

The country has seen small but significant growth from January to June this year. The number of total visitors grew 3 percent and overall revenues grew 1.9 percent, compared with 2008 figures. Tourism officials note that a small but growing portion of these numbers are Christian pilgrims, many of whom are Europeans.

"We rely on our faith during economic hardships, and that's why faith-based tourism is stepping up," Jordanian senator and former tourism minister Akel Bijltaji recently told the Mexican media.

"Like Muslims to Mecca [in Saudi Arabia], Christians must go to Jordan to the Holy Land," he said. "People will find the financial means for faith tours. It's a sustainable, ongoing tourism."

The Jordan tourism industry in recent years has actively pushed to develop its pilgrimage appeal by distributing multimedia promotional materials and working closely with the Vatican to attract more faith-driven tourists to Jordan's holy sites.

Overall tourism efforts have also seen a much more aggressive approach following a 1994 peace treaty with Israel, particularly in travel areas like adventure, wellness, history and ecotourism.

Barbwire fences have been rolled back to make way for paved roads, visitor centers and five-star resorts. Yachts cruise across the Red Sea and tourists float belly-up on the Dead Sea, both once off-limit destinations with sweeping views of Israel.

Jordan society as a whole has begun adapting to an influx of visitors bringing clicking cameras and hefty coach buses - "Tourism is our oil," local tour guides reason.

Today, the tourism sector comprises 14 percent of Jordan's gross domestic product and generates more than $3 billion each year, according to the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB). The nation of nearly 6 million inhabitants brings in around 5 million tourists each year, only 300,000 of which hail from the Americas.

Bijltaji told reporters that private Arab investors are set to spend approximately $10 billion over the next decade in building infrastructure, hotels, spas, shopping plazas and constructing inland beaches to potentially quadruple the number of international tourists in Jordan to about 4 million visitors.

But Jordan's biggest marketing success has not come from the well-lined pockets of Middle Eastern businessmen - it came from the Vatican, with a highly publicized visit from Pope Benedict XVI in May.

JTB managing director Nayef Al-Fayez said that the papal visit has brought significant attention to Jordan as a prominent stop on the trails of the Christian Holy Land. He also recalled visits by late Popes John Paul II and Paul IV as inspiring similar results.

Religious tourists, he explained, often mistakenly perceive Holy Land sites to be exclusively in Israel, with cities like Jerusalem and the 40-mile "Jesus Trail," and in the visitor-unfriendly West Bank, which houses Jericho and Bethlehem.

Jordan, however, is home to five holy sites designated by the Vatican as part of its 2000 Millennium Pilgrimage project. Sites include the Bethany Beyond the Jordan baptismal site, Mount Nebo, Tel Mar Elias, Anjara and Mukawir.

The papal visit also helped bring legitimacy to Jordan's position that Jesus was baptized at the border site Bethany Beyond Jordan, Al-Fayez said. The issue is hotly contested by Israel, who defends its Yardenit site just meters away as the true baptismal grounds.

Rif'at Bader, spokesman of the Vatican in Jordan, said that religious tourism is also important beyond just dollars and cents - it is also essential for destigmatizing Muslims and the Islamic faith.

Bader represents the roughly 180,000 Jordanian Christians living in the country, whom he said are generally not marginalized in this 95-percent Muslim country.

"It is important for any Christian in the world to see the fraternity and dialogue between Muslims and Christians here, and to not only hear about Muslims in the news and consider them all as terrorists," he said.

Back at the Jordan River baptismal pools, heat-dazed tourists dip their toes or wade through the water before silently shuffling back down the path.

Tour guide Armani Rustom said, "Through religious tourism, we can bridge the roads between love and peace."

He added that this site, once littered by 11 minefields, now attracts 100,000 visitors each year, and he estimated that recent tourism efforts should bring in around 1 million tourists to the site alone by 2020.

"This is the place where Christianity started, but it was protected by Islam," he said. "These are the fruits of peace."