By Olfa Andolsi.
Tunis, 16 November 2017:
Over a million Libyans have visited Tunisia in the first ten months of the year, for health, educational, political and personal safety reasons or just to have a break from the violence.
Tourism minister Salma Loumi said today that the 1,400,000 figure for Libyans who had come so far in 2017 represented an increase of some 17 percent over the same period last year.
The Libya number fits into an overall visitor growth so far this year of almost a quarter in foreign arrivals which have reached six million.
Tourism, once a mainstay of the Tunisian economy, nose-dived in the wake of the 2015 Bardo and Sousse terrorist attacks. Already this year, said Loumi visitor revenues had reached €929 million.
It is not clear if the minister’s Libyan visitor figures include those who have taken temporary refuge in the country. In 2015 it was estimated that there were as many as 250,000 Libyans living in Tunisia.
