ORAN- The Department of Tourism and Crafts of the wilaya of Oran has worked to develop the local tourist product by offering ten circuits to introduce tourists and guests expected during the course of the 19th edition of the Mediterranean Games, the many archaeological, cultural, natural and tourist sites in the region.
In order to support the development that the city of Oran is experiencing in terms of hotel infrastructure due to its position as a tourist center par excellence, the Department of Tourism and Crafts has thus developed various circuits to give an new impetus to the sector and attract customers interested in walks, hikes and tourist discoveries, as pointed out by the head of the tourist activities department at the Tourism Directorate, Mourad Boudjenane.
The objective is to promote “the Algeria destination” in general but also to make known the potential tourist qualities of Oran, develop local tourism and encourage tourists to discover other sites hitherto unknown, added Mr. Boudjenane.
The routes were drawn after a multi-sector study carried out by various partners such as the Department of Culture and the Arts, the National Office for the Exploitation and Management of Protected Cultural Property, the municipality of Oran and specialists and researchers from the Center National Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology (Crasc) of Oran, he added.
In addition, in order to enhance these sites, routes have been laid out, while guaranteeing transport, hygiene, and this, with the organization of several craft exhibitions, the installation of indicative and informative panels to highlight the sites. archaeological and historical sites, while mobilizing tourist guides offering visitors a fabulous and enriching getaway.
In anticipation of the Mediterranean Games, which will begin on June 25, guests and visitors will be able to take advantage of these routes in the company of twenty-three tourist guides approved by the supervisory ministry and 193 tourist guides, trained last January, at the level from the Higher School of Hotel and Catering in Oran, under the supervision of specialists, it was noted.
Diverse routes and products
To discover the potentialities of the region, whether historical, cultural or natural, the tourist circuits include more than twenty monuments, most of which are classified in the list of national heritage and dating back to the different historical periods known to Oran, from the Islamic era through the Spanish occupation, the Ottoman era and then French colonization, until today.
The first circuit, entitled “A walk in Oran”, offers a ride through the buses of the subsidiary “Oran city tour”, created in 2019 by the Tourist Office of the wilaya, to promote domestic tourism.
First on a national scale, the initiative allows visitors to discover ten emblematic sites of the city.
Aboard luxury buses providing two daily shuttles, the tourist discovers on his route the Regional Library, the Palaces of Culture and the Bey, the site of Châteauneuf, the Pasha Mosque and the Ibn Badis garden (formerly the promenade of Létang) , the legendary place Boudali Hosni (ex-Kleber), in the Sidi El Houari district, the Turkish baths, the hospital of Baudins and the door of Santon.
This itinerary includes a trip to Mont Moulay Abdel Kader, with a visit to the unmissable fort of Santa Cruz and the church “Notre-Dame de la paix”, then back to the square of “November 1, 1954” in the heart flying from the city.
Several other sites are to be discovered by the visitor in the nine (9) other circuits, including those called “the mosques of Sidi El Houari”, “the gates of Oran”, “the Ottoman circuit”, “the forts of Oran “, “the religious tourist fort” as well as “the green circuit”, one of the latest tourist products.
The novelty of these tourist products lies in the creation, for the first time in the western capital, of a “shopping circuit”, a tourist, commercial and recreational route through which the visitor will be able to acquire handicrafts offered for sale in the stands of the Arena, a monument located in the Eckmühl district of Oran, which attracted visitors to this high place of bullfighting practice in the last century.
Translated from APS
