Tourism in Timbuktu Mali - The Malian city of Timbuktu, which for many years was a favourite tourist desination, has lost its attraction with tourist arrivals down to a trickle. And the authorities are blaming insecurity and 'bad media campaign by Western press'.

The Malian Press Agency (AMAP) reported in Bamako on Monday that the number of arrivals had gone from 45,000 arrivals in 2006 to 6,000 visitors in 2009 and then to a mere 492 in the first quarter of 2011.

This is despite important investments to put the city on the world tourism map.

From 2 hostels in the 1980s, Timbuktu, about 1,000 km north of Bamako, has 25 hotels,10 restaurants, 5 leisure spots, 7 associations of tourist guides and camel drivers, 4 travel  agencies and one house of artisans, which moved to the city because of tourist activities that give employment to more than 68% of the population.

Now, investors in these tourist infrastructures and businesses are upset by the loss they are incurring because of the 'bad publicity' Western media are giving tourism in the north of Mali.

'There was an attack at a restaurant in Morocco that claimed lives, most of whom  were French, yet, it is recommended to tourists. On the other hand, Western travellers are advised by their respective countries against travelling to Timbuktu, where no tourist has ever been troubled,' said Hervé Panzani, a French expatriate and proprietor of La Palmeraie de Tombouctou hotel.

He said terrorism was a world phenomenon that could hit anywhere and any time on all the continents.

'Much has been exaggerated about Mali but it remains a country of kindness, love, human warmness and anyone who has not seen Timbuktu has not seen Mali,' he said, adding that policies were also to blame for the slump of tourism in Timbuktu.

Pana 11/10/2011