Ammon News - The Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) and European low-cost carrier Ryanair have signed an agreement to increase the number of the company's new air travel routes to Jordan by 6, bringing the total number to 22, connecting Jordan with 14 European countries.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, in Amman, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities and JTB Chairman, Nayef Fayez, said this hike in the number of Ryanair travel routes will serve more than 300,000 passengers to Amman and Aqaba airports through the company's services.

Jordan, he said, is witnessing a "positive" transformation in tourist movement after the Covid-19 pandemic-induced impacts that ravaged the travel movement, he said, adding that "signs of optimism are back today," with the announcement of the increase in air routes to the Kingdom.

The minister expressed his happiness with the increase in the number of Ryanair travel routes, which will have the "greatest" impact on increasing the flock of tourists to Jordan "significantly" during the coming period.

Preceding the pandemic, Fayez indicated that low-cost flights gave Jordanian tourism a "new" impetus, enabling the sector to achieve a "remarkable" leap that contributed to the increase of the tourist number.

The Kingdom, he said, is expected to witness "increasing and successive" growth rates in the number of overnight tourists and tourist groups, indicating that this "positive" transformation still has the same momentum that was witnessed in 2018.

Fayez also pointed out that the launch of Ryanair's services had a "positive" impact on the dynamics of Jordan's tourism sector, which led to an increase in tourist numbers with the opening of "a whole new" category of tourists, especially from Eastern Europe who had not visited Jordan earlier.