The Saharan sand dunes are more barren than ever in Mauritania as tourists have deserted this North African desert nation following attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda last year.
The number of visitors plunged 60 percent in the 2007-2008 season to 29,000, according to the country’s tourism ministry, and hopes are not high for the 2008-2009 season which got underway last month.
The brutal fall has forced the government to plan a “count-attack” to lure tourists back and save the budding industry which employs 45,000 people and brought the country 31 million euros (39 million dollars) last year.
The plan entails stepping up promotional trips for travel writers and marshalling friends of the country to talk it up.
“We’ll even go door-to-door in France and Europe to rehabilitate the image of our country and explain that it is and will remain a safe destination,” the country’s top tourism official, Cisse Mint Boyda, told AFP.
In recent years the country had become increasingly popular among French trekkers, but the Christmas day 2007 murder of four French tourists in the southern town of Aleg by Mauritanians said to be linked to Al-Qaeda started a downward spiral that shows no sign of stopping.
The killing of three soldiers in Atar, Mauritania’s top tourism destination, several days later sent shudders through the industry.
A travel warning by France and the cancellation of the celebrated Paris-Dakar auto rally — which ran through the Mauritanian desert — for security reasons were further blows.
But Mint Boyda insisted that security fears are overblown.
“We are not any more at threat than other Maghreb countries. On the contrary, the security measures taken by the government are sufficiently reassuring,” she said.
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