Striking a balance: Developing the Dead Sea while keeping a close eye on environmental and ecological concerns

The Dead Sea is one of the kingdom’s best-known attractions and has the country’s highest hotel occupancy rates, thanks in part to the area’s limited hospitality offerings. To fully capitalise on the area’s vast potential, an ambitious long term plan to develop the coast – while protecting its ecological diversity and fragility – is now in place, with an initial focus on domestic tourism. Although a major challenge to the long-term success of this project is the continuing shrinkage of the sea, a project that aims to address this is due to begin in 2013.

EASY REACH: The Dead Sea offers several advantages as a potential domestic and international tourism hot spot. The site is famous internationally for being the lowest point of land on the earth and for its high salt content, which allows swimmers to float with seemingly supernatural ease on its surface. Further, the area is linked by a highway to Amman, which is just 40 km away, putting it within easy reach of the capital’s large population, as well as foreign tourists either arriving at or transiting through Queen Alia International Airport.

The sea is also well known for its mineral content, making it an attractive wellness tourism centre. The Dead Sea’s low elevation means temperatures tend to be significantly higher than in nearby Amman, which is built on hills that are approximately 700 metres above sea level, making the area a warm-weather escape from Amman’s cold winters.

The Dead Sea area is also linked to the kingdom’s major resort destination, Aqaba, which is located some 280 km away and is connected to the area by the Dead Sea Highway. Aqaba and its surroundings encompass Jordan’s major religious tourism destinations, including the Biblical site where St John is said to have baptised Jesus (located 10 km outside of Aqaba) and Mount Nebo, where the Prophet Moses is said to have been given a view of the promised land.

SPACE FOR GROWTH: There is clearly room for hotel expansion in the area. There are currently just a handful of hotels on the Dead Sea’s coast, all high-end resorts, which in 2011 had a combined total of 1539 rooms. The number of rooms is expected to rise to just under 3600 by 2014 as a result of projects currently under construction.

Occupancy rates stood at approximately 58.1% in 2010, well above the national average of 41.9%, and hit 99.9% in May of that year, while also rising above 80% in the months of April and October, according to figures from the Jordan Hotel Association (JHA). “The Dead Sea offers huge potential as a tourism destination, both in terms of foreign tourists and local tourism,” said Munir Nassar of the Jordan Inbound Tour Operators Association (JITOA).

In early 2012, the Jordan Development Zones Company (JDZ), part of a network of development zone companies run by the state-backed Development Zones Commission, completed a long-term master plan to guide the expansion of the tourism and leisure sector along the northern half of the Jordanian coast of the Dead Sea.

THE PLAN: The phase one master plan was drawn up by a consortium of four external consultants, namely Sasaki (the overall consortium leader), Tetra Tech, Jordanian firm Sigma and sustainability adviser Buro Happald. The plan, which consists of six phases, is based around the creation of a series of nodes with distinct characters along the coast and sets the future of the zone for the coming 25 years.

The total area covered is around 40 sq km, but due to factors such as various ecological constraints taken into account by the plan, the amount of land that will actually be developed is around 10 sq km. Work on the project may subsequently be extended further inland as part of the eventual phase two and phase three master plans, the territory of which has already been mapped out, although these identified areas are not covered by the current plan.

The JDZ is responsible for dividing the zones into lots and marketing them for investment, as well as developing and maintaining infrastructure and public space in the zone. Incentives for investment in the zone include a corporate income tax rate of 5% and exemption from Custom duties.

INCREASING THE RANGE: One of the key long-term goals of the master plan is to increase the range of facilities and activities available to tourists. “The lack of mixed-use developments and things to do in the area currently limits the lengths of stays,” said Amal Zanoun, the director of the projects and infrastructure department at the JDZ.

The overarching strategy of the plan is to create a number of mixed-use facilities and to leverage links with other nearby tourism sites.

According to Zanoun, “We have just finished the Dead Sea master plan, which determines the next 25 years of development at the Dead Sea Development Zone. It has been formed in consultation with all related stakeholders, including the government.” Initial activity will mainly focus on the Corniche area at the northern end of the Dead Sea.

“Development here will mostly be on a small to medium scale, with parcels of land ranging from less than one dunum (1000 sq metres) in size to 17 dunums, allowing smaller local companies to get involved,” Zanoun further added.

TAKING IT IN PHASES: The first phase of the project will be developed on the northern coast, around 7 km from the existing hotels on the eastern coast. The plan envisages the construction of a total of 1227 hotel rooms and 1318 apartments in the area, as well as over 50,000 sq metres of retail space.

The company is prioritising the development of one-third of the Corniche area, as well as the construction of a public beach and infrastructure for the entirety of the area, which should be complete within three years at an investment cost of approximately JD13m ($18.29m). This represents phase one and two of the overall project, with the entire Corniche area planned to be fully developed within 10 years.

The scheme will include a bus terminal that will link the area to Amman and Amman airport, facilitating the movement of both tourists and workers.

PRODUCT DIVERSIFICATION: One of the key aims of the master plan is to increase the range of facilities and activities available to tourists visiting the area. According to Taha Al Zboun, the CEO of the JDZ, “Without the amenities needed to attract long-stay tourists, the Dead Sea hospitality business only attracts visitors for an average of 2.1 nights, well below the national average of five nights.”

The Corniche area will include public beaches and parks, while all ground-floor building space will be reserved for retail and leisure outlets. Another of the aims spelled out in the plan is to extend the range of available accommodation beyond that offered by the existing high-end hotels, including both three-star and self-catering options.

“The master plan offers a range of accommodation services that responds to the various income ranges of local and international tourists,” said Zanoun of the JDZ. Investors have responded quickly, with the majority of the southern part of the Corniche area now allocated, following the signing of contracts with nine companies from both Jordan and the wider Middle East region.

The Corniche project is to be anchored around a logistics centre near Sweimeh village that will include shared centralised facilities, such as a laundry and a bakery, meaning each hotel will not require their own. The scheme will also provide a raft of jobs, particularly to inhabitants of the nearby Sweimeh village. Other ventures currently in the works include a convention district within the existing hotels cluster and large-scale resort areas.

A SHRINKING SEA: One major challenge that the plan faces is that the Dead Sea is shrinking as a result of the depletion of the Jordan River. A study concluded in December 2011 – one of five interrelated studies currently being undertaken as part of the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Study Programme – found that if the problem is not addressed, the sea level is likely to continue to fall by around 1-1.2 metres per year and the salinity of the Dead Sea will gradually increase.

The government plans to address this through the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Project, which will pump water from the Red Sea into the Dead Sea in order to reverse its current decline. Additionally, the related Jordan Red Sea Project (JRSP) aims to meet the kingdom’s overall water needs through the desalination of water from the Red Sea.

The projects are ambitious and face significant technical challenges; for example, the December study found that pumping water into the Dead Sea in quantities large enough to arrest its decline could significantly alter its natural properties. Nevertheless, in late March Mousa Jamani, the minister of water and irrigation, announced that the JRSP’s first phase, which will be primarily focused on Aqaba and surrounding areas, will be launched in early 2013.