David’s post is here, but also read the comments – they’re a fascinating glimpse into the travel blogging mindset.

After what I wrote there, Nathan Midgley followed up with this. Then a business journalist writing about the Visit Jordan campaign emailed me for my opinion. I thought I’d lay things out here.

Visit Jordan’s strategy has considerable merit.

Here are some sweeping generalisations for you. Jordan is a difficult destination. It’s hot and dusty, and a bit underdeveloped. It’s in a war zone. Not many people have been there – word of mouth doesn’t yield much info. You have to be tough to get around, and you have to like scrambling over ancient ruins, cuz there isn’t much else. The people are nice enough, but it’s not exactly a Land of Smiles. Women need to watch out. Tread carefully around cultural issues – people are easily offended. And watch your wallet.

Rubbish, isn’t it? But that’s where I think ordinary folk are coming from. They simply don’t know. For years, I’ve been bellyaching about the lack of information out there on Jordan.

So a campaign which delivers a large quantity of first-hand experiences, in text, pictures and video, to an audience already primed & softened up to the delights of travel makes sense. Over a year you could realistically expect mainstream media around the world to run perhaps 30 separate print features on travel to Jordan in total. Maybe 50. That’s a lot of eyeballs, sure, but it’s also a lot of dead ends. Bloggers can deliver hundreds of posts, as well as FB & Twitter coverage, that – I’m guessing – have way more trickle-down impact than MSM. By plugging closely into a SM-savvy market, you could potentially spark the holy grail for every tourist board – Positive Word of Mouth Worldwide – without having to spend millions on Incredible India branding or sumptuous Malaysia Truly Asia ads.

Nayef Al Fayez – former director of the Jordan Tourism Board (i.e. the overseas promotional arm) and now Minister of Tourism – is a smart guy. He travels constantly. He listens to people. He knows how Jordan is seen around the world.

And he knows that whereas half of Jordan’s tourism is package holidays booked through a tour operator, that leaves half which is effectively independent and unmeasurable. For a DMO to be able to talk directly to consumers and be believed has inestimable value.

So, aside from the danger of firehosing the web with Jordan content rather than dripfeeding under controlled conditions, JTB’s strategy is basically sound. The problems come, I’m afraid, from the bloggers.

Much has been made of the fact that blogging shatters the old journalism model, by allowing writers to be their own publishers – Alastair McKenzie, for instance, makes that point here.

That’s power – a lot of it. Blogs which attract tens of thousands of visitors, and bloggers who have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter and/or Facebook, are as powerful as publishers. That’s why PRs and DMOs (and advertisers) are wooing them.

But they’re unedited. Unregulated. Untrained. Unqualified. Unaccountable.

That can be positive. They can publish things mainstream media wouldn’t touch – wacky ideas, marginal destinations, tangential encounters. But, let’s face it, they don’t. A handful of notable exceptions aside, travel bloggers just churn out the same old crud. They swan around like wide-eyed first-timers. There’s no insight. There’s no pre-trip research. There’s no post-trip reflection (heaven forbid: publish and move on). There’s no understanding of the economic strategies which brought them to the destination. There’s no sense of perspective. To put it bluntly, there’s no journalism. It’s all just words, words, words. Me, me, me. So we end up with the immortal “Jordan is the Canada of the Middle East“.

As David Whitley so memorably said, the last thing the web needs is more stuff on it.

Because they don’t know any different, bloggers are putty in the hands of the PRs…and it’s a short distance from that to the iambassador marketing programme embraced by Visit Jordan, and queried by Jeremy Head.

JTB’s tactics have let its strategy down. Quantity of material is the driving force, but quality has been underestimated. Quality really matters, if Jordan is to break out of its standard historical/cultural package tourism model and diversify into potentially lucrative niche markets. And, incidentally, those markets go beyond tourism: they have the ability to slowly – but clearly – define Jordan’s uniqueness to the world. This is soft power. It’s absolutely vital to the national interest.

But that won’t come if the country spends money hosting people who can only deliver “Jordan is the Canada of the Middle East”, regardless of how big the audience for that message is.

Bloggers are in a uniquely privileged position. Most of them, though, still view travel as holiday, rather than work, and they view themselves as being in a community rather than as being communicators. That’s not good enough. With power comes responsibility. Responsibility to the destination, sure, but above all to the readership. Show us something new.

Be better.

Disclaimer: In the last 12 months I went twice to Jordan. In the three years before that I was there 7 times. I’ll be there 3 or 4 times in 2012. Sometimes I’m hosted by the tourist board, sometimes I’m not. If you think that means I’m jealous because I wasn’t invited to take part in the 2011 blogger programme (thank heavens), good for you.

After their amazing work over almost thirty years in the Wadi Rum deserts of southern Jordan, and their expertise trailfinding long-distance paths in Palestine – and Tony’s record-breaking conquest of the Troll Wall, Europe’s tallest rock face, back in ’65 – plus countless more achievements in destinations from southwestern Morocco to northeastern India, this month sees the publication of their new guide to the Al Ayoun region of northern Jordan.

It’s another groundbreaking effort. No outsider (other than Taylor & Howard themselves, a few years ago) has explored this region in any detail – this is the first guide, in any language, to identify unwaymarked countryside routes known only to local shepherds and farmers.

Printed in Jordan – a nice boost for the local economy – the book is published by Vertebrate in the UK and is full colour throughout: the pictures of Al Ayoun’s amazingly lush, green and fertile countryside are gorgeous. 20 long-distance walking routes are covered in turn-by-turn detail, with GPS and maps. There are full accounts of rock climbing and, perhaps uniquely in Jordan, caving. Local knowledge is, of course, impeccable, with rural legends, archaeological history and deep understanding of Jordanian culture mixed with transport info and practical advice.

It’s a slender book – only 104 pages – but it signposts the way for how sustainable – and sustaining – tourism can develop, not only in Jordan but in any developing economy: not with one-off eco schemes or grand promotions, but by investing time, money and expertise in allowing pre-existing local knowledge to find expression, and by fostering the creation of outlets by which that knowledge can come to a wider audience, thereby stimulating economic (and emotional) investment from visitors.

If you’re even halfway interested in Middle East travel, buy the book.

The noble pursuit of travelling

For a flavour of what it’s like (the book, that is), here is the Dedication which Tony & Di print in full:

“There is much profit to be derived from seeing new lands and new houses, in seeing beautiful gardens and fields, in seeing different faces and coming across different languages and colours, and in witnessing the wonders of different countries.

The peace that one finds under the shade of large trees is unparalleled. Eating in the mosques, drinking from streams, and sleeping wherever one finds a place when night comes, these all instil affability and humbleness in a person. The traveller befriends all those whom he loves for God’s sake and he has no reason to flatter or to be artificial.

Add to these benefits all of the happiness that the traveller’s heart feels when he reaches his destination, and the thrill he experiences after having overcome all of the obstacles that were on his way.

If those who are averse to leaving their homelands knew all of this, they would learn that all of the individual pleasures of the world are combined in the noble pursuit of travelling. There is nothing more enjoyable to a traveller than the beautiful sights and the wonderful activities that are part of travelling through God’s wide earth.

And the non-traveller is deprived of all this.”

From ‘The Noble Scholar of Hadith’ by Ramhumuzi

Source: Don’t Be Sad, by Sheikh ‘Aaidh ibn Abdullah Al Qarni (2003)

Warning: rant follows

Now, pin back your ears for a rant – perhaps only of interest to those involved with Jordan. Feel free to stop reading now…

The book came about through Tony Howard & Di Taylor’s association with the Abraham’s Path Initiative (API), who have been working in Al Ayoun for several years to help local communities develop the Al Ayoun Trail (better coverage here), part of the wider Abraham’s Path running from Turkey and Syria through Jordan into Palestine.

API, Al Ayoun and all of these similar organisations or individuals are operating on shoestring budgets. I cannot imagine how much of their own time and resources Tony & Di have ploughed into Jordanian tourism over the decades – not the flashy promotional stuff, but solid, hardcore, tough work down at the grassroots, making connections, building bridges, raising consciousness, offering support, developing ideas. And yet, they told me, for want of a pittance they still struggled to get this book published.

It would not have appeared at all, so I understand, without the sponsorship of Jordanian entrepreneur Fadi Ghandour, founder of Amman-based global logistics firm Aramex. Tony mentioned to me that, after Fadi agreed to help, he demanded a unique form of payback: he asked Tony and Di to lead him on one – only one – walk through Al Ayoun, because he wanted to see the most beautiful parts of his own country – and there was no information, no map and no specialist guide able to take him out into the wilds.

That’s a special kind of sponsor. Fadi is to be congratulated for having the vision to back such a valuable project for Jordan.

His involvement puts to shame the entities and organisations further up the food chain who will benefit from this book, but who didn’t see fit to back it.

Which makes me wonder why this doesn’t happen more around the Middle East. There was this idea for the Falafel Bus, running on a regular hop-on-hop-off route between points of touristic interest in Israel, Jordan and Egypt – but, as I heard from a hostel owner in Jerusalem a couple of weeks ago, it’s already folded after less than three months. I’m not surprised. Awful, awful name, transparently attempting to raise a smile by defining what unites Israel and its neighbours – which is a very Israeli mindset, incidentally: you don’t find Jordanians or Egyptians hunting for warm and fuzzy points of cultural commonality with Israel. Funny that.

But the idea itself was all wrong – too big, too complicated, too expensive – and if the accuracy of the truly execrable map is anything to go by, completely unreliable to boot.

But that’s not to say smaller-style initiatives couldn’t work. I was just in Palestine. A tourist bus route that went from Bethlehem checkpoint to Bethlehem, Jericho, Taybeh, Ramallah and back to Qalandia could potentially draw independent travellers out of Jerusalem to see more of the West Bank. It would save on taxis, for sure.

There was talk in Nazareth of a private-sector initiative emerging to encourage tourists to visit Jenin, perhaps as part of a joint hotel package in both cities. But that would be expensive. Independent travel, with community-run buses reliably linking either side of the Jalameh checkpoint, perhaps also serving the superb ancient site of Sebastia nearby, would be more attractive to more people.

And Jordan is, frankly, crying out for something like this. A friend I know recently made enquiries about starting a tourist bus circuit around Jordan to entice independent travellers arriving by easyJet – to no avail: the quantity of paperwork and capital funds required to obtain a commercial permit put him off.

The only example I’m aware of is run by entrepreneur Charl Al-Twal, owner of the (excellent) 3-star Mariam Hotel in Madaba. For some years now he’s offered a private bus for tourists between Madaba and Petra along the scenic King’s Highway – a long, slow route avoided by normal buses, which all follow the quicker but duller Desert Highway further east.

But public transport around Jordan to sites of tourist interest is virtually non-existent – major UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as Umm Ar-Rasas, Quseir Amra and Wadi Rum, are effectively impossible to reach unless you’re on a tour or have private transport.

The trouble is Jordanians – and most tourists to Jordan, who come from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries – aren’t interested in visiting Quseir Amra. Or Wadi Rum. And nobody is willing to go out on a limb to start a round-Jordan bus service anyway, in the hope that vivid marketing and a bit of PR will create a demand. So Amra (and others) remain desperately under-visited, Jordanian tourism remains stuck in a rut of seven-day package tours visiting all the same places, and innovation of Jordan’s national tourism product remains largely elusive. Someone, somewhere has to bite the bullet.

Looks like they’re trying in post-revolutionary South Sinai.

Now, up steps Jordan – a poor country with few natural resources and a faltering economy. 85% of it is arid. Its once-thick forests were nearly all chopped down a hundred years ago to build the Hejaz Railway – which is now, itself, defunct. Today only 1% of Jordan’s land remains forested, mostly in the north around the highland market town of Ajloun (pictured here).

Ajloun is one of Jordan’s poorest regions, and has been the focus of rural development efforts for a decade. There are signs of success. A nature reserve, established on a remote hilltop, has proved popular, and has sparked the growth of village handicraft projects and community-led rural tourism. Nearby, campaigns by the environmental lobby managed to alter plans for a sprawling hotel complex in the midst of the forest.

Now, the government has announced plans to uproot hundreds of trees across a 300-acre site in the middle of Bergesh Forest in order to build a military academy. This represents a climb-down after the outcry at their initial plans to uproot thousands.

But the policy nonetheless appears to be illegal – and the nature lobby (no hippies: these are respected scientists and sober policy-makers with the ear of ministers) have consequently withdrawn their participation in an environmental assessment, which seems set to be a whitewash before it begins.

What’s going on? With vast expanses of empty land on which to build, why is Jordan so keen to fell its tiny acreage of surviving trees? Without wishing to be simplistic – and presuming, of course, that there is no element of corruption involved – could it be because the directors of planning are city people, who feel a bit lost when confronted by blank space on a map?

Jordan has a history of this. In 1985, when a new highway was being built east out of Amman, the planners were faced by virtually limitless open desert. Yet they plotted a dot-to-dot route which linked two ancient sites – just about the only two ancient sites out there. Why? Presumably because, well, there was nothing else on the map. And maybe because they were following ancient pre-existing tracks between desert wells. But lorries don’t need to stop for water every 50km.

The result is that these two magnificent 8th-century ‘desert castles’ – Qasr Harraneh and Qasr Amra, the latter a UNESCO World Heritage Site – now have a major highway rumbling directly past their walls, along with lines of pylons and other service infrastructure, effectively eliminating any sense of history or traditional heritage. Calls to rebuild the highway a mile or two away, with feeder roads to the ancient sites, have so far fallen on deaf ears.

Now we have the same kind of thinking again. If you’re Russia, Germany, Nicaragua or Thailand, perhaps chopping down a small forest to build a military base could be justified. If you’re Jordan, and you’re proposing to chop down virtually the only forest you’ve got left in the entire country simply because, well, there it is, it makes no sense whatsoever. Not economically, not militarily, not socially, and certainly not environmentally.

Who is advising the government – that is, His Majesty the King – to go ahead with this?

Is Jordan’s terrible blight – short-term expedience causing long-term degradation – about to recur at Bergesh?

I just saw this post at WorldNomads.com, written by Megan Czisz, about going “off the beaten path” (or track!) in Jordan. Megan defines this as Amman, roast chicken, the King’s Highway, Dana, Petra and Wadi Rum. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it is kinda remarkable how the beaten track can magically become off the beaten track in the fervid world of travel blogging.

Greater travel bloggers than I might now branch off into a thoughtful disquisition on themes of familiarity and exoticism in travel and travel writing. Me? I’m going to force you to watch my holiday snaps instead, in the vain – yet, truthfully, altruistic – hope that people doing a search for “Off The Beaten Track in Jordan” don’t come up with Petra and falafel sandwiches and think that’s it.

There’s not much rhyme or reason to these pics. I’ve compressed them a lot (so forgive the pixellation, but please don’t steal them anyway) and I’m not cramming links in either. For more info on Jordan, go and buy a decent guidebook.

Amman isn’t off the beaten track, but its beauty isn’t widely appreciated. This (above) is a snap which says nothing much about anything, but which has got a whiff of atmosphere to it, at least.

As does this.

And this (above) is one of the city’s loveliest cafés, but I’m not going to tell you its name. Since we were mentioning street food, this guy (below) is most definitely ON the beaten track, and he knows it too…

Moving on, there aren’t many places where this happens…

That (above) is Irbid – visual proof that a kindly old fluffy-bearded man in the sky really does beam down on Jordan.

A gentle scene – except those hills behind are the Golan Heights, Syrian territory annexed by Israel. Here’s another view, from above…

That’s the Sea of Galilee behind the bougainvillea. To get to (or from) that terrace, you drive on one of my favourite roads…

It’s pretty quiet. Here’s another place that’s pretty quiet:

That’s the River Jordan. Yes, the River Jordan. It’s no Amazon. When she stands up, the water reaches her knees. The other bank, by the way, is Palestine – the middle of the river is the international border. While we’re on a biblical theme…

Up there, on top, is where Salome danced the dance of the seven veils for old King Herod, and where John the Baptist was separated from his head. Hardly anyone goes there now.

Just a couple of nice landscapes, both from northern Jordan, the sort of place where a boy can sit in a wheelbarrow, pick his nose and call it a good day’s work.

Thinking of curves, how did those 7th-century architects down in the desert get bricks to curve like this?

Silhouettes do nice things sometimes. Amazing how Jordan seems to inspire scenic nose-picking though.

That pic (above) is in Aqaba on the Red Sea coast, a place which is now trying desperately to get on the beaten track, after years off it. Lots of fancy hotels and upmarket construction. But still a touch of atmosphere…

Balls.

Of handmade olive-oil soap, that is.

At the end of a hard day, there’s always the sunset…

It’s not bad looking this way either.

And even better from this side.

Given a choice, dromedaries (below) always make their own beaten tracks…

And as for whether Jordan is safe to visit or not, best do what the guy says, OK?

For Rum background, click here, here, here and here.

Few outsiders know Wadi Rum as well as British climbers Tony Howard and Di Taylor. Since their first visit 27 years ago, Tony and Di have been exploring trekking paths and climbing routes all across these rugged landscapes in partnership with the Bedouin, bringing local knowledge to a global audience with unique sensitivity and insight. Several books have resulted, notably Treks and Climbs in Wadi Rum and its partner volume Jordan: Walks, Treks, Caves, Climbs and Canyons. Tony remains an authority on sustainable adventure tourism to Jordan and many other destinations – his publications list takes in Norway, Oman, England and Palestine. His most recent book, Troll Wall, describes his pioneering 1965 ascent of Europe’s tallest rock face. Tony returns to Wadi Rum every year, staying for weeks at a time with the Bedouin.

When the news of Rum’s UNESCO listing broke, I asked Tony if he would like to contribute an article for this website. I’m delighted he said yes. This is what he wrote:

Wadi Rum’s UNESCO World Heritage status has been a long time coming. Some may say it’s not come soon enough; others wonder if it should have happened at all. But Lawrence‘s “Rum the magnificent” is more than deserving – its natural and archaeological wonders are outstanding and both the Old Testament and the Holy Koran are believed to make reference to its culture.

Why then any concern? For many, the main worry is can the area and its people – the Bedouin – cope with the huge increase in tourism that the designation of World Heritage Site will bring? Despite the best efforts of Jordan’s RSCN to protect the core area, it already shows signs of overuse: one must accept that Rum village has grown out of all proportion – when we first arrived in 1984, only Bedouin tents and half a dozen houses surrounded Rum’s fort – but the valley-wide proliferation of vehicle tracks that now head south from the village to the tourism hotspots can hardly be described as welcome. Nor can the ever-increasing number of ‘tourist camps’ which already dot most of the valleys. It is, of course, good that as always the local people are taking the initiative, but while some of these camps are discreet and well managed, others are incongruous – and some are not even owned by Bedouin.

One wonders what type of accommodation the new Rum will have, and where, and how that new accommodation will impact on the site and the ongoing success of the existing Bedouin-run tourist camps.

At peak periods in Rum there are already too many tourists. What then, when the numbers double (as they could)? What effect will that have on the ambience of Rum, its quiet valleys and those people still trying to live their lives peaceably, in the desert? Will outsiders with no knowledge of Rum, its wild places, its culture, its tourism be drafted in as guides and drivers? What new rules and regulations will appear? Will the almost year-round mainstay of Rum’s sustainable tourism – the environmentally aware adventure tourists, trekkers and climbers enjoying what’s been dubbed the world’s best desert climbing area – be faced, as they are in Petra, with ill-considered and impossible demands to hire guides, when in truth guides are not needed by those with sufficient experience? Already Rum has insufficient guides for those visitors who do require them.

And will any of this benefit the area – and more importantly its people? If the evidence of the Wadi Rum Visitor Centre is anything to go by, the answer is probably not. Prior to its construction in 2004, the Bedouin of Rum could wait in their houses until it was their turn in the rota to drive tourists into the desert. Now all the drivers must go 7km to the Visitor Centre and sit around all day waiting for business. No shelter is provided for them. All these cars doing miles of pointless driving pumps unnecessary pollutants into the valley air every day.

So if Rum’s new World Heritage status is to protect the area and benefit its people, its culture and its visitors (both adventure tourists and mainstream tourists), a lot of work has to be done – and quickly. Let us hope that those who undertake this task will work fully with the local people to understand their needs – and the needs of all types of tourists.

Article is © Tony Howard, 27/06/2011. Author contact here.

Reading Wallpaper’s brief article, it’s obvious – for what it’s worth – that they’ve never been to Wadi Rum. Unlike similar desert tourism hubs in, say, Oman or the UAE, Wadi Rum has no “five-star camps”. Staying there is a basic affair, either in vast, ramshackle tourist camps sleeping 150 people in army-style two-man canvas tents, pitched in orderly rows a few hundred metres off the road – or with bedouin guides in their own smaller, cosier camps in the deep desert, sporting rudimentary washing facilities and blankets under the stars. There is no “mixing [of] luxury travel with tribal customs”. The former doesn’t exist; the latter are homogenised and packaged for outsider consumption so as to be more or less indiscernible.

For years, since British climbers Di Taylor and Tony Howard introduced low-impact tourism to Wadi Rum after 1984, the bedouin and the Jordanian authorities have tussled over how to develop the area while maintaining its cultural and environmental integrity.

Now, perhaps, this scheme points a new way forward. Have a look at Wallpaper’s slideshow of images. All very striking. Especially this one – your private infinity pool.

It would be easy to decry the whole idea. A pool in the desert?! The global elite landing helicopters in Rum to spend a week being massaged and waited on hand & foot by Egyptian and Filipino lackeys?! Hacking huge chunks out of Rum’s epic mountainscape in order to accommodate “pure concrete forms” and “sheets of glass and water”?!

But I’m not going to decry it. I’m going to welcome it, with reservations. If it is placed discreetly, if it is environmentally sound, if it feeds local and global interest in imaginative, innovative tourism development in Wadi Rum (and Jordan as a whole) – and, above all, if it is managed so that it injects money into impoverished local communities in Jordan, then I’m all for it. If it is another Qasr Al Sarab or Zighy Bay – well, I’m not sure Jordan needs it.

Intriguingly, Wallpaper says the scheme is both “competition-winning” and “in development by a private client”. Since Princess Haya of Jordan married Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, I have heard speculation about investment by the Al-Maktoum in desert tourism in Wadi Rum. Similarly, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, emir of Abu Dhabi, has also been involved in Wadi Rum recently, donating oryx for a wildlife reintroduction programme there.

A scheme for tourist lodges on such a grand scale, employing a global ‘starchitect’, in a desert environment cherished by the bedu, bears the imprint of UAE influence… I wonder who that “private client” is. Anyone?

Cropped image © Tariq Dajani

This is a blog about travel, but every so often it’s nice to take five minutes out for a thing of beauty.

I came across the work of British-Jordanian-Palestinian photographer Tariq Dajani back in 2007, when he won First Prize in the International Color Awards for his images of Arabian horses. They blew me away. Have a look – there’s a slideshow of his images, on his own website, here.

His images of Arabian hunting falcons here are works of art. Extraordinary. They remind me of 18th-century British landscape painters – Gainsborough, or (appropriately for the horse theme) Stubbs: measured, insightful, emotional.

Take time on Dajani’s website. His images of Dubai are perhaps the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

Dajani’s horses were repurposed for a 2011 calendar by Saudi Aramco World – a cultural magazine focused on the Arab and Islamic worlds, published by Aramco (the Saudi state-owned oil company) out of their offices in the US. The calendar is downloadable for free here.

Tomorrow I leave for Saudi Arabia, on assignment for Aramco World. I talked to Dajani a couple of weeks ago in Amman and I was thrilled to learn that he might be photographing one of the stories I will be researching there, in Riyadh. A real privilege, if it happens (I hope it does).

Those horses. Wow.

Tunisia was amazing. Egypt is astounding. Bahrain boggles the imagination. Libya is off the scale. At the time of writing, none of those 4 revolutions is resolved. And there is also Yemen, Algeria, Morocco, even – staggeringly – Syria. Of a different character, but no less significant in their own way, are protests in Jordan and Oman, government handouts in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and even baby-steps towards parliamentary elections in the UAE. Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Israel may be fairly said to have their own concerns right now. That only leaves Qatar. Nuff said.

Anyone who’s been following me on Twitter will know that I’ve been trying to keep on top of the changing situations across the region day by day, which is a full-time job in itself. But this is a tourism blog, not a news digest – and I’ve held off from blogging travel titbits, since just about the only noteworthy tourism issues arising so far from these multiple revolutions have focused on less-than-gripping tales of Western governments’ efforts to repatriate their stranded citizens.

But the role of tourism in all this has increasingly felt rather seedy to me. Throughout the Egyptian revolution, governments and the travel industry kept on maintaining that Sharm and the Red Sea resorts were completely safe and unaffected by the upheavals in Cairo and around the rest of the country. Two British travel writers – who I won’t name, for their sakes – were flown into Sharm during the protests to ‘experience’ a luxury hotel. They did a bit of desert touring, tweeted about how peaceful it all was, and took some vox pops (which, unsurprisingly, were all about wanting to encourage tourists back – and this was before Mubarak had resigned).

That shocked me. It highlighted just how detached Egyptian tourism had become from Egyptian life. While people from all sectors of society, in all parts of the country, were engaging in serious political action – perhaps for the first time in their lives – all some Westerners seemed to care about was their ‘right’ to relax on the beach. The industrialised mass tourism which Sharm (and other places) specialise in filters virtually no money back to the communities which host it: a huge proportion of the cash spent on a typical Sharm holiday remains either outside Egypt altogether, or in the hands of inbound tourism conglomerates controlled by the kind of tycoons Mubarak’s regime favoured. People don’t go to Sharm, or Taba, or Hurghada, or El Gouna, or Marsa Alam, or any of Egypt’s other chiefly purpose-built seaside resorts in order to engage with Egyptian culture, or to enjoy a characteristically Egyptian beachfront scene. Most of these places didn’t even exist before mass tourism anyway; there often *is* no local “scene” other than tourism. People go because it’s sunny, cheap and you can fly there directly.

Is that bad? Well, since you’re asking me, yes it is bad – but some people like that sort of disconnect. What got my goat was that such disconnects enable Mr & Mrs Westerner to lie on sunloungers being served cocktails by Mr Egyptian, even while Mr Egyptian’s country is in flames as society is being completely reshaped by events a few hours’ drive away – and that Mr & Mrs Westerner are able to feel good about it because they are ‘supporting’ a vital plank of Egypt’s economy by not cancelling their holiday. Airlines and holiday firms kept on flying tourists into Egypt throughout the revolution.

That’s wrong. That’s a moral problem. If your tourism doesn’t allow your hosts to retain their dignity, you need to change your tourism. Dignity comes through income, sure. But nobody – in the UK anyway – seemed to relate industry calls for continued tourism to noses in troughs. At no point did the UK government advise its citizens not to go on holiday to Egypt (if it had done, then the rules on insurance reimbursement would have changed, whereupon the travel industry could have pulled out without losing money). I might be naive, but that is a failing of British foreign policy. Equally, the travel industry’s current reliance on Foreign Office travel advice benefits insurers (and reinsurers), not the industry – and certainly not holidaymakers.

Looking ahead, Bahrain and Libya don’t have anything like the same level of tourism – but the last couple of days have seen violent protests in Oman, which has a flourishing and important tourism sector. If the violence there escalates, will we see the same thing – Westerners holed up in luxury hotels, pretending all is normal, while Omanis try to reshape their society around them? It’s hard to tell. One complicating factor is that, unlike in Egypt, in Oman tourism is concentrated in the capital.

Globally, tourism is dangerously close to getting too big for its boots. It seems to enjoy being last out – only halting altogether under extreme duress – and, above all, being first back in, even while the last stones are being placed on fresh graves. That’s topsy-turvy. When people are trying to grasp political power previously denied to them, holidays become unimportant. They should stop. We should stop them.

The reality, though, isn’t quite so rosy. The common visa would only be issued for tourists travelling in groups. Independent travellers – that substantial bloc of price-conscious, culturally aware, potentially high-spending visitors – are being given the cold shoulder yet again.

And then, when you think about it, do visa issues actually hinder group tourism in these four countries at the moment? Probably not. Although Jordan’s tourism minister Zeid Goussous is quoted as saying a common visa would encourage more tourists from faraway countries such as Latin America, I’d suggest a far greater disincentive for people in Asia or the Americas contemplating a long-haul holiday in the Middle East might be the perceived threat of violence or terrorism, the unfamiliarity of the destination(s), the high cost of international travel and ground arrangements, and/or the necessity of taking 10-14 days’ holiday at a minimum to justify the long flight. Red tape on the border is rarely an issue for group tourists, who get all their paperwork handled by their tour company.

(By contrast, bureaucracy for independent travellers at Middle Eastern border crossings can be miserable – but independent travellers will not qualify for these common visas. An opportunity missed.)

A key question, unanswered in the news report, is how much the visa would cost. That could make the difference between successful stimulation of a semi-dormant market – and negligible returns on yet more diplomatic hot air.

Separately, I’d also suggest that people coming to the Levant from, specifically, Latin America would very likely want to be visiting the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth rather than lazing in Beirut or ballooning in Cappadocia – but Palestine and Israel are specifically excluded from these visa proposals.

So is this the wrong visa, for the wrong people, at the wrong time? No. Any moves to cut red tape must be welcomed – and it seems to me the whole Latin America thing is a red herring: this is, in truth, focused on tapping growing markets in India, China and East Asia for overseas leisure tourism.

Middle Eastern cooperation, in whatever form, is good. From such initiatives do greater visions take hold. Bring on the common visa.

The researcher and I exchanged emails and had several long chats on the phone – she asking me about the logistics of travel across the Middle East and possible points of interest for a driving show, me bending her ear at length about how wonderful the region is and throwing lots of ideas at her about how and where the trip might run.

I can’t remember whether it was her or me who mentioned the idea of the show following the route of the Three Wise Men, travelling from “the East” to Bethlehem. But it was probably her. Almost certainly her. I mean, let’s face it, it must have been her. Must have been.

Anyway, so there were more emails, and more long phone calls (“I wondered if you would be free for a chat about the Golan Heights?” “Do you know if it’s possible to drive through the West Bank now?”), and I passed on specialist contacts in Jordan, in Palestine, I sent her links for theories of where the Three Wise Men originated – perhaps Iran, perhaps elsewhere – I explained what frankincense and myrrh are, and where they come from… the whole thing. We got on alright, I thought.

Perhaps I was naive in freely sharing knowledge without fixing terms, or without discussing the possibility of being involved in the show (or at least being acknowledged somehow).

Perhaps she thought I was doing it for the love of the Middle East, or because she thought images of Clarkson in the desert would instantly cause a soaring rise in sales of my Rough Guide to Jordan, thereby recompensing me through vastly increased royalty payments at no cost to the licence-fee payer.

Either way, the emails stopped in May, and I heard nothing more.

Then, this appeared: a Top Gear Christmas special, broadcast on 26th December, centred on a trip whereby Clarkson, Hammond and May follow the route of the Three Wise Men, travelling from “the East” (Iraq) to Bethlehem, via Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Israel, with attempted detours via Iran (not possible with a BBC crew), across the Syrian desert, and into the Golan Heights.

Iraqi Kurdistan came off rather well, with lots of epic scenery and enthusiasm about the friendliness of the people. Turkey was portrayed as shabby and dangerous. Syria seemed rather fun. Jordan was dismissed as a basket-case. Israel was glossed over, and Palestine didn’t exist – we saw nothing of Bethlehem. Top Gear’s not my favourite show, and I’m the wrong demographic, but all that burqa-wearing stuff struck me as particularly stupid.

And, of course, I got no credit. Perhaps I’m over-estimating my input, perhaps my info was utterly tangential, but I think that stinks. Sour grapes? Of course it’s sour grapes. I’m wallowing in sour grapes. They chewed me up and spat me out.

I’ll leave you with an email from me to the Top Gear researcher, dated 1st February 2010:

hi again
Struck me over weekend that this might also be of interest:
http://jerashchariots.com
Can just imagine the 3 of them racing, Ben Hur-style, around the Roman hippodrome…

On the right is a still frame, taken from the sequence where the 3 of them race, Ben Hur-style, around the Roman hippodrome at Jerash, Jordan.

Great idea, BBC.

easyJet is intending to operate three flights a week from London Gatwick to Amman’s Queen Alia airport, with an unbelievably low lead-in price of £106 return (US$168; JD118). That price is likely to apply to very few flights – but even if a more usual fare turns out to be double (or even triple) that figure, it will still represent by far the cheapest way to get to Jordan.

It’s hard to overestimate the potential impact. It is, in short, the biggest shot-in-the-arm for Jordanian tourism from the UK (and, arguably, for Jordanian tourism in general) since, well, ever.

For years, Jordan has suffered from poor access and high fares. Two airlines fly direct between London and Amman – BMI and Royal Jordanian. Both operate out of Britain’s least favourite airport, London Heathrow, and it’s difficult to find fares on either of less than about £450 return. From London it’s often considerably more expensive to fly to Amman (3600km) than to Muscat (5800km).

Is that through lack of demand, or lack of opportunity? Well, we’re about to find out. I’m afraid easyJet’s arrival will be a kick in the pants for both RJ and BMI.

But this doesn’t only put the cat among the pigeons as far as the airlines go. Can Jordan itself actually cope with increased numbers of British travellers on short breaks and sun-seeking holidays?

Jordan’s high visa fees, and absurdly high entry prices at Petra, will put some off.

The over-concentration of five-star hotels in Amman, Aqaba and the Dead Sea – and the lack of high-quality three- and four-star midrange properties around the country – will be shown to be a mistake.

Jordan’s focus on pouring resources into developing package tourism, to the detriment of the independent travel sector, will be exposed as short-sighted.

And cultural issues, as Brits arrive expecting Amman to be like Sharm el-Sheikh or Aqaba to be like Hurghada, may be thrown into sharp focus. Ryanair’s cheap flights to the ancient Moroccan city of Fez have been a stop-start affair, not wholly welcomed on all sides.

On the plus side – well, it hardly needs saying. This puts Jordan into the ‘A’ league of European destinations. The increased exposure, simply through being on easyJet’s route listing, is invaluable. It opens up a whole new market for Jordan, price-sensitive but potentially high-spending independent visitors, who have previously been overlooked. Tourism accounts for roughly 20% of Jordan’s GDP (the country’s second-highest earner) and employs roughly 40,000 people, thereby supporting perhaps as many as a quarter of a million Jordanians, out of a total population around 6 million. It’s not an exaggeration to say that easyJet’s arrival could signal a rise in Jordan’s standard of living.

But perhaps the most important aspect of easyJet’s announcement is the vote of confidence it represents in promoting Jordan as a safe, decent, worthwhile place to go on holiday, regardless of whatever might be going on across the border in neighbouring countries. For years now, the negative impressions garnered from the news media, and allied concerns about personal safety, have been the single hardest barrier for Jordanian tourism marketeers to surmount. Amman’s appearance in easyJet’s big, bright, friendly, orange ads, alongside Corfu, Tenerife and Majorca, is the kind of PR money simply cannot buy.

Incidentally, this is also the first British low-cost routing to an Arab capital city. I don’t want to get too dewy-eyed about it, but there’s an undeniable element of bridging a certain awareness gap there. More Westerners experiencing Arab and Muslim society first-hand, from the inside, can only be a good thing.

I sincerely hope the Jordanian tourism industry – and Jordanian society – can flex with what is a seismic shift. Heaven knows Jordan needs easyJet; but, in truth, does easyJet need Jordan? I really hope that, by the end of 2011, it will be obvious they do.

The cost of a single-entry visa is doubling to 20JD (or US$30 equivalent; roughly £19).

A new category is being created for a double-entry visa, at 30JD (or US$45 equivalent; roughly £28).

And a multiple-entry visa is trebling in price, to 60JD (or US$85 equivalent; roughly £54).

These apply only to individual travellers. People arriving in Jordan in a group of five or more, booked through a tour operator, travelling together and staying for more than two nights, qualify for free visas.

(Presumably, visa fees if you arrive by land, air or sea at Aqaba remain free, under Jordan’s desperately confusing system of semi-autonomous administration for the Aqaba duty-free zone “ASEZA“.)

This comes on top of this year’s huge rises in entry fees to Petra, which now stand at 50JD (US$70/£45) for one day, rising to 60JD (US$85/£54) for three days – or an eye-watering 90JD (US$126/£80) if you are on a daytrip to Jordan from elsewhere.

These numbers do their own talking. As regular visitors to this blog will know, I have spent a lot of time in Jordan, and I love the country very much. On the back of figures stating that 48% of foreign holidays taken by Brits in 2009-10 were individual trips NOT booked through a tour operator, I am perplexed – and worried – by this latest decision. It sends the wrong message to the market and I believe could paint Jordan into a corner, forcing the country to rely more and more on group trade in years to come – just when potential visitors from Europe and North America are seeking more flexibility and niche value to their holidays.

I hope it doesn’t backfire.

I like the “20″. Makes me wonder: if you get to 400,000 miles in a year, do you notice the extra 20? I mean, does it drag, like the last section of a climb, or does it just sail by like all the rest?

It has to be said, though. Despite that mind-bending figure – well over 1,000 miles every single day, on average, or the annual equivalent of more than sixteen times around the Earth – it’s small beer for some. This guy Tom Stuker does more than half as much again, rather like the George Clooney character in the movie Up In The Air.

But Greenberg looked great on it. Lovely guy, really easy to talk to, very down to earth (if that’s not a contradiction in terms). He told me he never travels with checked luggage: at any one time, he has half a dozen suitcases in transit with Fedex, tracking him around the world, so they’re always there – wherever ‘there’ is – when he is. He has six houses in various countries, so if he sees something he wants to own, he buys six of them, keeps one with him and Fedexes the other five.

What struck me most, though, was that someone who is pretty much a household name in America could walk down the street in London without a glance. No disrespect to Greenberg, but despite his eminent status – and everyday prominence – he’s not just virtually unknown in Britain; I’d say he’s completely unknown. Simon Calder, Britain’s nearest equivalent to Greenberg in terms of being a serious investigative travel journalist who is perpetually on the go, could similarly (no disrespect again intended) walk down the street in NYC in peace and quiet, I’d guess.

That says a lot about this very strange industry, by definition global and outward looking, but in practice completely insular and market-restricted. US travel – its history, its direction, its favourite destinations, its preoccupations, its style – has extraordinarily little in common with, say, British travel. And British travel has got virtually nothing to do with French travel or Spanish travel, which are completely different again from Israeli, Korean or South African travel.

On the cusp of World Travel Market – one of the biggest annual events in the travel industry, which starts tomorrow in London and absorbs huge amounts of attention among travel professionals – it seems obvious to me that there is no travel industry, at least not globally. Every market is talking to itself. Although the customers are thinking about anywhere but home, for the professionals every scrap of attention is focused on what ‘home’ does.

And that goes for travel journalism, too. It’s delicious: the most determinedly global, outward-looking, cosmopolitan branch of journalism is in fact the most parochial of the lot. Travel journalism obsesses about domestic trends. Celeb gossip, business news, sport and fashion are all far more global than travel could ever be. They, at least, speak to the world.

Good on Greenberg; long may he keep flying. Journalists with his depth of knowledge, dedication and expertise are rare. This odd little business needs him.

I really enjoyed it – I thought the host, Vicky Letch, did a great job setting the right atmosphere and it’s always fun seeing how these shows are put together. It was live, but didn’t feel like it. Enjoy.

Link here.

For a modest, often-overlooked country in a region of big headlines, such a very public commendation is no small thing. And for Jordan in particular, whose film industry – such as it is – represents a minuscule fraction of the national economy right now, that one sentence could make a big difference.

A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to be invited on set during filming for Captain Abu Raed, the first full-length feature film to come out of Jordan in more than fifty years, directed by Amin Matalqa. I wrote about it extensively – here is one article which appeared at the time – and I remember that the buzz which built up in Amman around the movie’s premiere and its subsequent success was like nothing I’d been a (tiny) part of before. Captain Abu Raed won numerous awards, including at the Sundance Film Festival, and it ended up as Jordan’s first-ever entry for the Oscars – even though it didn’t make it onto the shortlist that year…

What it did do – aside from its artistic achievement – was broadcast the fact that Jordan is a safe, efficient place to shoot a movie. The Hurt Locker is following in a line of Hollywood films, from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to Brian De Palma’s Redacted – via The Mummy Returns and Transformers – that were shot in Jordan… not forgetting David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia.

Movie-shoots mean prosperity: aside from the publicity and the star names, dozens or hundreds of people on the crew must be fed and accommodated during the (often weeks-long) shoot, transport is needed, local fixers are needed – and then there are many opportunities for filmmakers and technicians to be taken on locally.

Movie-shoots also generate tourism. When fighting meant that Bollywood directors could no longer shoot song-and-dance scenes in the Kashmir mountains, they turned to the Alps. Years of unexpected growth in the market for Indian tourism to Switzerland followed. The country now offers specialist film tours for Indian tourists.

In addition, foreign shoots give a huge boost to Jordan’s own, tiny film industry, which is mostly – for lack of resources, rather than creativity – centred around shorts. Matalqa and Mahmoud Al Massad, director of Recycle (2007), are still making movies, and this year sees the first students graduating from the Aqaba-based Red Sea School of Cinematic Arts (RSICA), an international film school – the first in the Middle East.

In front of the world’s media, Bigelow could have said anything and thanked anyone in her acceptance speech, or even seized the headlines by mentioning the Iraq war. She chose instead to dedicate her award to the people of Jordan. Good for her – and good for Jordan.

I’ll spare you the personal details, but one of the things she mentioned was her contribution to Al Mashriq. That was like tying two long-forgotten friends together into one memory. Al Mashriq was one of the first websites I ever explored, way back in 1996 when I started to work out what on earth anyone was supposed to actually do with the internet.

Maghreb is a familiar term in English, used to describe the countries of North Africa; it comes from the Arabic word gharb, meaning west (i.e. of Cairo). Its equivalent, referring to the countries of the Levant – Mashriq, from sharq, meaning east – is much less familiar… not helped by the fact that the more common term in Arabic – Bilad Ash-Sham, or “Lands of the North” (i.e. from Arabia) – mixes up the compass points.

The Al Mashriq site was started by Norwegian academic Børre Ludvigsen in 1994 as a one-stop compendium of cultural material relating to the Levant (Ludvigsen grew up in Lebanon in the 1960s). Back in the day it was unsurpassed: getting any kind of online information out of the Middle East was virtually impossible, and for the best part of a decade Al Mashriq was one of my regular haunts.

However it was a mammoth undertaking, and the devil was in the updating. There’s not been much of that – the About page proudly boasts that the site hosts 35,000 documents “at the present (March 2000)” – and as a source of up-to-date cultural developments in the region, Al Mashriq has long since been overtaken (not least by the superb site Al-Bab, run by Guardian journalist Brian Whitaker).

But going back to it now, and exploring pages (and whole areas of the site) that haven’t been touched in more than a decade, is fascinating. It’s like stumbling across a dusty, old secondhand bookshop crammed with out-of-print gems. Earnestly uploaded information, lots of it hopelessly outdated, has a value of its own simply through having survived unscathed.

A 1973 tourist pamphlet of Jerash, “bought at Antoine’s bookshop, Rue Hamra, Beirut, in 1995″, has been digitized and uploaded, complete with B&W photos. Fifteen years ago, before Wikipedia, Flickr and VisitJordan.com, that was a genuinely useful resource… and, like a musty Baedeker, it still is.

Several articles from Saudi Aramco World magazine from the 1990s, each presumably typed in painstakingly by hand and uploaded, would have been rare and useful source reading. Now, the magazine has its own free online archive going back fifty years.

A blurry, indistinct satellite image of central Cairo was something to coo over, in the days before Google Earth. And it needed the warning that the full version was 300K in size – that must have necessitated a long wait for the download, back in 1994…

And so on. Loads of links are broken (though a surprising number still work) and lots of material is out of date – but there is still a vast amount of fascinating and useful stuff to browse through, much of which is not date-sensitive. And, occasionally, there is evidence of recent updating. Maps and images of the 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel; recent socio-economic reports on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon – and a section on the now-defunct Lebanese State Railway Company, researched and written in 2008-09 with the help of a certain Toufoul Abou-Hodeib.

Rediscovering old friends is such a joy.

The Treasury, Petra

While I was in Jordan last week, I made an incognito visit to Petra. This has always been by far the priciest of Jordan’s tourist attractions: where most other sites cost a few dinars to get in, Petra cost 21 JD (£18/$30) for a one-day ticket, 26 JD (£23/$37) for two days, 31 JD (£27/$44) for three or more days. That’s only for ‘foreigners’: Jordanians, expat residents and Arab nationals pay 1 JD a day. Debating the rights and wrongs of that is for another time and place.

Some people, of course, like to take a guide – you could drop into the Visitor Centre at the entrance gate and book a guide on the spot: 20 JD for a straightforward trot through the main sights of Petra (2.5 hours) or 50 JD for a full-day tour.

As you walk into the site, there are also local people offering horses to ride. In the old days you could ride a horse all the way through the Siq canyon into the heart of the ancient city – that was great, a really exciting, memorable experience. But it also, of course, degrades the site’s terrain to have hundreds of people galloping horses around every day, and so, back in the 90s, it was decreed that tourists could only ride horses for the 700m or so from the ticket gate down to the Siq entrance, where everybody had to dismount. If you still wanted to do this short ride, the fee was fixed recently at 7 JD – but then you had to run the gauntlet of the handlers (who were hardly ever the horse-owners) trying to wheedle extra tips out of you.

Astronomic price rises

Now USAID has been brought in as consultants to reorganize how tourists experience Petra. What I discovered last week amounts not only to astronomic price rises, but a shockingly corrupt system of backhanders being written into law.

As of 1st January this year, the Petra authorities are forcing everybody who enters Petra to pay a compulsory surcharge covering the cost of a guide and a horse-ride, regardless of whether they use those services or not.

In addition they are splitting tourist visitors into two classes. Regular tourists – defined as those who stay overnight in Jordan – now pay 33 JD (£29/$47) admission for one day, JD38 (£33/$54) for two days, JD43 (£37/$61) for three or more days.

From 1st November 2010 those prices rise again, to JD50 (£43/$71), JD55 (£48/$78) and JD60 (£52/$85). That’s a heck of a lot of money: a family of four wanting to visit Petra for a couple of days now faces a bill of almost £200 for the entry ticket alone.

“Day Visitors” (presumably defined as those tourists who do not stay overnight in Jordan) are hit even harder. They must pay JD40 (£35/$56) until end-Feb, JD60 (£52/$85) from March till October, and then from November onwards a staggering JD90 (£78/$127) per person simply to get a one-day ticket to enter Petra. A family of four who have booked a holiday in Egypt and who choose to make a daytrip to Petra now face a staggering £312 fee simply to get into the ancient site.

The authorities have clearly decided that people who want to see Petra will be willing to pay any price to do so. That’s quite a gamble.

And how are the staff at the Petra ticket desk going to differentiate between a “Day Visitor” and someone who has a hotel booked (in Amman, say) for that night?

More to the point, why should I be forced to subsidise the horse-owners and tour-guides of Petra when I do not wish to avail myself of their services?

This is a country whose average salary is under $7000 a year and which is – let’s face it – only very modestly equipped in terms of tourist infrastructure, though it makes great play of its hospitable welcome to visitors. With these changes Jordan is now, quite overtly, setting out to screw as much money out of its tourists – instead of, for instance, concentrating on developing a decent range of attractions and fostering local private-sector investment in tourism to offer a broader, more mature national product.

Petra needs an overhaul, sure. Daytrippers who visit Petra from Egypt or Israel, then go back across the border the same day, spending virtually nothing in Jordan, are a problem. But will punitive entry prices solve it? Why not make Jordan more attractive, to entice people to stay longer?

Proposals for more toilets on-site, better interpretation and new transport services in & out are welcome. But why such a massive price-hike to fund them? Petra had more than 800,000 visitors in 2008, who brought more than $21 million in ticket receipts for this one site, in one year alone, in a developing-world country. $21m buys a lot of portaloos. Where has that money gone?

The worst is that the authorities have decided to line the pockets of Petra’s horse-owners with gold. These people – and the handlers who hold the reins – provide a dreadful introduction to Petra. The horses are hardly prime physical specimens. The stables beside the path stink. As of last week the handlers were still demanding “tips” from tourists, despite now being paid directly from ticket receipts.

Petra – though the most impressive ancient site in Jordan – is my least favourite Jordanian experience. It’s a hustle, and it just got worse.

My guess might surprise you. If you discount Mecca during the haj – which hosts 3 million people from seemingly every country in the world – I’d say the answer is Tel Aviv. I just got back from there, on assignment for The Independent, and was delighted to get reacquainted with what is an amazingly diverse city.

In the space of a few days, and aside from Israelis, I talked to Afghans, Iranians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Iraqis, Romanians, Americans, Ethiopians, French, Brazilians, South Africans, Moroccans, British, and more – most of them Israeli by nationality but carrying cultural identities originating all over the world.

There are, of course, very specific political and cultural reasons for Tel Aviv’s diversity – before and after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 people were encouraged to go there to make a new life, in the process erasing several pre-existing communities. For some observers, that turns the city into an illegitimate implant. For me, it turns it into a living reflection of the region’s human tragedies – a precious, uniquely valuable record of the results of intolerance.

The injustices are not clear-cut. The thinking among politicians and ordinary people, both in Israel and in other countries, which resulted in whole communities arriving en masse in Tel Aviv strikes me as being just as racist as the thinking which has legitimized the complete emasculation by Israel of Old Jaffa. This once-thriving Palestinian city, dating back to the Old Testament, is now shockingly reduced to a touristy stop on a sightseeing tour, hosting only galleries run by wealthy Israeli artists and a handful of underplayed (or, in the case of the Jaffa museum, neglected) historical attractions.

Seafront districts of Jaffa are now full of luxury villas and condos, designed in a pastiche style more reminiscent of contemporary architecture in the Gulf – pointed arches splashed around in a vain attempt to locate the building within some kind of cultural context. Tel Aviv has much beauty, but it has made Jaffa ugly – literally and metaphorically.

Jaffa is a mostly overlooked link to further themes of exile and displacement. In 1948 many people from there were forced to flee to the Jordanian capital, Amman – barely 100km to the east.

Like Tel Aviv, Amman’s character has been shaped by movements of people. Once a mainly bedouin city, its population doubled in the space of a few weeks in 1948 as Palestinians arrived in large numbers seeking refuge from war and persecution in Israel. The same thing happened in 1967 – and again in 1991, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait. After the 2003 Gulf War, hundreds of thousands more people arrived in Amman from Iraq. The city, poor to begin with, and buffeted by waves of refugees, has often struggled to cope.

Amman has remained overwhelmingly Muslim and ethnically homogeneous. Yet Tel Aviv – which has remained overwhelmingly Jewish – has become ethnically very diverse.

This isn’t the place to bang on about cultural identity, but one thing is interesting to note. Tel Aviv has frequently been active in facilitating the absorption of large numbers of immigrants (aided, of course, by political engagement and lots of money). Amman, by contrast, has been almost entirely passive: urban planning is a recent innovation and a sense of shared endeavour has been almost completely lacking. As a consequence Amman sprawls, while Tel Aviv flows.

Yet both were founded in 1909. Both have been celebrating their centenary this year with cultural events and public parties – a parade in Amman, fireworks in Tel Aviv – and dedicated websites (this for Amman, this for Tel Aviv). Both cities identify strongly with their populations’ experience of transplant and exile: in both, a simple “Where are you from?” is enough to cue a life-story. They have a lot to share.

But there has been no contact. I know only a handful of people in both cities who have made the journey to visit their urban neighbours. Isn’t that a pity?

Yamaan Safady

Back in June I blogged about how a tour-guide friend from Jordan, Yamaan Safady, had been shortlisted for a major award – the Paul Morrison Guide Awards 2009, run by Wanderlust magazine in the UK.

I was at the awards ceremony last night, at London’s Royal Geographical Society, and I can report that Yamaan took the Silver Award – a landmark achievement that confirms him as the top guide in Jordan, and one of the best in the world. Hearty congratulations to him, to Tejendra Singh, who took the Bronze Award, and to Diego Torres, who took Gold.

Yamaan also got the biggest laugh of the night. All three guides were asked by Wanderlust editor Dan Linstead to say what their clients most often wanted to know during a trip. The others said that guests asked how long they had been guiding, or which was their favourite destination. Yamaan just said “Are you married?” Brilliant.

I wish him every success. He says he wants to use his £2500 prize to qualify as an International Mountain Leader, which would make him the first Jordanian to do so and enable him to represent his country abroad. “This will allow me to lead hiking groups all over the world and promote my beautiful country – a dream come true!”

Good for you, Yamaan.