COUNTRY: Jordan

CLIENT:
European Commission, Sequa gGmbH

PROJECT TITLE:
“Institutional Support for the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (IS-ASEZA) AQABA TOURISM QUALITY SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT”

SHORT DESCRIPTION

In February 2001, the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) was established as the statutory institution empowered with regulatory, administrative, fiscal, and economic responsibilities within the Aqaba Special Economic Zone (ASEZ) located on the Red Sea in southern Jordan. The EU funded programme 'Institutional Support for the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority’ (IS-ASEZA) has been designed to enable ASEZA to guide the zone towards becoming a dynamic and attractive engine of economic growth for the country and the region. The tourism component stresses the development of Aqaba towards a business and leisure destination on the international tourist destination map. Therefore, Aqaba shall be developed into a destination that provides outstanding service quality and the individual tourism stakeholders (tourism value chain) shall significantly raise their service quality standards.

The objective of the project is to establish Aqaba as a tourism destination and to increase its competitiveness, through the theme “Aqaba… Tourism destination that offers unique experience with excellence in quality services”. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to improve the quality of the tourism products and services and develop a quality standard for the local tourism industry.

AGEG Consultants carried out the following measures:

• Workshops to ensure quality standards in the hotel sector
• Development of quality standards and strategy recommendations
• Development of a Tourism Quality System with specific criteria for different tourism sectors
• Create a detailed plan for the implementation of quality concepts for each sector
• Development of a Tourism Quality System for accommodation, restaurants, transport providers, travel agents, etc.
• Development of a ’Five Year Communication Action Plan’ including the conceptualisation of a complaint management system