Brits are still travelling to Tunisia three years after resort attacks
Foreign Office warns prospective visitors: ‘Terrorists are still very likely to try to carry out attacks’
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Your support makes all the difference.Three years and three months after 38 people were gunned down at the Tunisian resort of Sousse, British visitors are returning in greater numbers than expected.
In the attack on 26 June 2015, 30 UK holidaymakers were killed by an Islamist gunman named Seifeddine Rezgui.
After the massacre, the Foreign Office placed the country on the no-go list. The ban was lifted in July 2017.
Package holidays began again in February 2018, initially with Thomas Cook operating three charter flights a week with accommodation in the resort of Hammamet.
Demand was strong and the programme quickly expanded. Its giant rival, Tui – whose customers were the victims of the terrorist rampage – also returned to Tunisia.
As the summer season draws to a close, the director of the Tunisian National Tourist Office in London has said that visitors numbers are “beyond what we expected”.
Wahida Jaiet told The Independent: “We were expecting 85,000 British customers over the full year, but we have already welcomed more than 90,000.
“It’s been very emotional, the coming back of the British people.”
By the end of 2018, the number is expected to reach 105,000.
The planned flights programme for 2019 indicates the holiday firms expect to carry 170,000
Before the attack in 2015, the number of British visitors to Tunisia in a year was expected to top half-a-million for the first time.
The Foreign Office still warns: “Terrorists are still very likely to try to carry out attacks in Tunisia, including against UK and Western interests. Security forces remain on a high state of alert in Tunis and other places.
“In more remote areas of the country, including tourist sites in southern Tunisia, security forces’ response times to an incident may vary.”
Some areas of the country are still off-limits.
French and Russian visitors have returned to Tunisia in large numbers. The country is perceived as offering better value than Spain. For a departure on Tuesday 9 October, Thomas Cook is offering a week’s five-star all-inclusive holiday in Port El Kantaoui in Tunisia for £442, compared with £691 for the cheapest equivalent deal in Mallorca.
On Monday, Thomas Cook’s chief executive, Peter Fankhauser, said: “Prices in Spain cannot keep on going up, and up, and up without having an effect on volumes.” His company is increasing the number of departures to Tunisia in 2019.
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