(Jericho) Tourism professionals in Jericho, a Palestinian city in the center of the occupied West Bank, hope to gain dynamism after the listing of an archaeological site as a UNESCO world heritage site.
At the end of summer 2023, only a few dozen visitors brave the midday sun to walk around the prehistoric site of Tell es-Sultan.
This place, older than the Egyptian pyramids, is an oval-shaped mound lying in the Jordan valley. It contains prehistoric deposits testifying to human activity “between the 9th and 8th millennia BC. ”, according to UNESCO, the United Nations agency for education and culture.
Almost unsuspected from the outside, the site received a spotlight in September when it became the fourth site to be inscribed on the prestigious UNESCO World Heritage List for the State of Palestine.
The news was then celebrated with fireworks, the inhabitants already imagining that this distinction would guarantee them better days.
“It was the first time that I told myself that there was a form of justice in the world,” recalls the city’s mayor, Abdoulkarim Sider.
“I hope this will have a significant positive effect on the number of tourists,” he told AFP from his town hall.
There is no shortage of reasons to come and visit Jericho, both for Christian pilgrims and the curious.
Twenty-nine strata
The surrounding landscape is dotted with biblical sites including the Monastery of Temptation, perched on the mountainside, where Christian tradition places an episode of the Gospel story of the temptation of Christ.
On the edge of the thousand-year-old city, the palace of the Umayyad caliph Hicham Ibn Abdel Malik presents one of the largest mosaic ensembles in the world. After several restoration and protection campaigns, some here hope that the pavement will be the next to receive the respect of UNESCO.
Paradoxically, despite its cultural wealth, Jericho attracts relatively few tourists.
In the first quarter of 2023, 32,535 people stayed in hotels in the region according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS). In comparison, over the same period, Bethlehem, a neighboring pilgrimage site, welcomed 221,377 visitors.
Standing in front of the entrance to the archaeological site of Tell es-Sultan, a Chinese tourist admits that she was unaware of its existence and that she only came for the adjoining restaurant, one of the stops on her bus route.
Responsible for the development of the archaeological sites of Jericho, Mohammed Mansour is aware of these challenges.
“We are going to build a new museum (on the site of Tell es-Sultan, Editor’s note),” he announced, specifying that everything would be at least partly covered by Italian funds.
“Incredibly beautiful”
Mr. Mansour never tires of describing, with enthusiasm, the 29 stratigraphic layers whose excavations have revealed traces of settlement dating back to the 8th millennium BC. As such, he finds it “great” that people from all over the world can come and admire it.
But it is Israel – which has occupied the West Bank since 1967 – which issues visas to tourists wishing to go there, and not the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Mansour thus says, disappointed, that visitors often believe they are in Israel and not in the Palestinian autonomous zone.
He and the mayor deplore that many tourists pass through Jericho only quickly, as a simple stop on tours often established by Israeli guides.
Another difficulty for promoting the region is the oppressive heat which reigns there for more than half of the year.
There remain local tourists. Jericho is a destination that can appeal to Palestinians in Israel.
Chadia Dahamchi, who comes from Kafr Kana in the Galilee (northern Israel), found Hisham’s palace “incredibly beautiful”.
“The place is really, really sublime,” insists this 55-year-old woman, amazed by the know-how of those who built this monument in the 8th century AD.
Mr Sider suggests lighting the sites so they can be visited at night and hopes to encourage tourists to explore more of the Jordan Valley.
“One day is not enough” to visit Jericho, summarizes the mayor who wishes to develop visits to the palm groves hugging the city, or hiking trails through the imposing valley.
“Jericho is the oldest city in the world, everyone has the right” to visit it, concludes the mayor.