And the toughest job in the world…? Come on down the Syrian Tourist Board!
Syria has been plunged in a civil war for the past five years that’s killed hundreds of thousands of its civilians and displaced millions more, but that hasn’t stopped the national tourism board from launching a new campaign to entice potential (and very brave) visitors.
Syria Tourism has unveiled a new campaign that shows the country to be full of beautiful beaches and attractive water sports. It also comes with arguably the most optimistic tagline in advertising history – “Syria – always beautiful”. Check out one its promo videos here.
It’s all a far cry from the demolished buildings, bombings and injured civilians we see on our news screens every night.
Despite it appearing a godforsaken hell-hole, the Syrian Ministry of Tourism claims they’ve actually seen an increase in levels of tourism month on month in 2016 when compared to the same period last year. And no, we’re not sure if they got out alive either.
In a statement the Ministry said: “We have witnessed the movement coming to Syria since the beginning of the year to the month of July, 2016 increased by 30 per cent for the same period in 2015, according to the statistics of the department of immigration and passports.” And you thought the Gold Coast was rough during Schoolies Week!
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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I was in Damascus in 2006 and it really is a beautiful city, I guess that was then 🙁