JORDAN, a country where tourism is the main stay, is now looking to Indian cinema makers to visit Jordan for shootings to give a fillip to the sagging tourist numbers, according to a top official of Jordan Tourism Board.

“We have approached some producers in India asking them to shoot in Jordon.

Some have also visited the place to study the locations.

We see a big potential in Bollywood,“ said Nayef H AlFayes, board-managing director. The country had played host for many Holly Sanjay Austa wood production houses, said Al-Fayes.

Incidentally, Egypt, which had its campaigns last week to boost tourism, too said it will look up to the film crews for a fillip to their tourism industry, which accounted for 12 per cent of the GDP . Al-Fayes said the financial slowdown in the US and Europe hit the tourist flow to Jordan hard.

The six million populationcounty suffered collateral damages too due to political turmoil in Egypt.

Last year, Jordan has seen 4.5 million tourists but in the number has fallen by 11 per cent in the first five months of this year. Tourism accounted for about $ 3.5 billion last year, accounting for 14 per cent of the GDP , next only to the contribution to the GDP by Jordanians working in other countries. “The fall in tourist number from the US for the month of May has been 24 percent. The cumulative slide in numbers from US is about 11 per cent,“ he said adding that many shunned travelling to Jordan due to the turmoil in Egypt. Egypt and Jordan are the preferred packages for many, he pointed out. “We see India among the top five tourism contributors to Jordan in a few years from now,“ the tourism board-managing director said. About 51,000 Indians visited Jordan in 2010, 73 per cent more than the previous year.

For five months ending March, the tourist number from India grew 43 per cent to touch 29,000. “This is the highest growth compared to other significant contributors,“ he said adding that Jordan will invite Indian hotels to set up businesses. At present, it has 24,000 rooms available for the tourists and several tourism projects are in the pipeline.

Now the average stay for Indian tourists is about 2.9 days and Jordan is making efforts to increase it by introducing family packages and repositioning itself as a `religious and spiritual destination'.