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Algeria
Tourism
Algeria shares with Morocco and Tunisia a coastline with great
potential as a tourist attraction. Its tourism industry, however,
has always lagged behind that of its closest neighbors. Mainly
because of the government's failure to promote tourism and the
lack of well-run quality hotels and tourist sites, the number
of foreign visitors to Algeria in the 1980s never exceeded onefourth
and one-sixth of those to Tunisia and Morocco, respectively.
Since 1989, however, the government has shown greater interest
in promoting tourism because of its potential as a source of foreign
exchange. As part of its efforts to liberalize the country's economy,
the government has decentralized the national tourism company
and granted autonomy to many state-owned hotels. The government
has also allowed foreign companies to run newly constructed hotels,
such as the Hilton just outside Algiers. Another large hotel (350
rooms), managed by the French chain Sofitel, opened in early 1992
in the Hamma district of the capital. The government continued
to encourage local private investment and foreign participation
in joint ventures, hoping to increase hotel capacity to 50,000
rooms within a decade. The government's decision to lift the DA35
million ceiling on local private investments was also expected
to generate considerable hotel construction activity.
Data as of December 1993
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