Word: rifai
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...nearly empty, and the tourist sites deserted. Any passing traveler can currently walk into a five-star property and pick up a room fit for King Abdullah II himself for less than $50 a night. "It's been a difficult season," admits Jordan's Minister of Tourism, Taleb Rifai. "People read headlines about crisis in the Middle East, but they don't realize that, in Jordan, we have been living a normal life throughout this troubled period...
...Rifai has one last ace up the sleeve of his jellaba robes, however. Jordan has a special resonance for fans of T.E. Lawrence, the Welsh soldier who united the disparate Arab tribes to fight alongside the British against the Turks in World War I. Since his 1935 death in a motorcycle crash, the mythology surrounding Lawrence has cast him as the ultimate romantic adventurer. Counting on the draw of his legend to revive their flagging fortunes, the tourist authorities have inaugurated a series of Lawrence theme tours that follow in the footsteps of the man portrayed with equal measures...
...Rifai will doubtless toast what he hopes will be a Lawrence-inspired tourism renaissance. "The Lawrence myth has been rather underplayed in Jordan until now," he says. "We need more examples of people like him to broker stronger relations and mutual trust between East and West." But the harsh reality for the foot soldiers of Jordan's stalled tourist industry is that it will take more than the eulogized legacy of an eccentric British officer to bring visitors back. Especially if a U.S.-led military assault on Iraq goes ahead and opens what King Abdullah II has described...