Aqaba Research Articles

Is Eilat-Aqaba a bi-national city? Can economic opportunities overcome the barriers of politics and psychology?

Unlike other bi-national cities, Eilat and Aqaba constitute a special case in which the interaction between the two cities is dependent upon external factors, mainly of a political nature. Eilat in Israel and Aqaba in Jordan straddle each side of the Gulf of Aqaba. Both are similar from a functional aspect: they are port and tourism towns and both constitute a gateway to east Africa and the Far East. They are both situated in a desert region near a sea. The Oslo Accords and subsequently the peace agreement between Jordan and Israel, have opened up many possibilities for cooperation and joint development activity. A number of projects have been put forward, including a joint airport aimed at serving both cities, as well as the shared use of the seaports. Tour packages from Europe to both cities are another feature that holds a substantial economic potential, as do connecting roads and joint plans for the preservation of the unique landscape in this region. A border-crossing point between the two countries has been opened up and tens of thousands of tourists have flocked (mostly from Israel) to visit nearby Petra and Wadi Ram. Laborers from Jordan have begun to be seen in Eilat, working mostly in construction. The long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is still casting a heavy shadow on the great possibilities for cooperation. The signing of a peace treaty is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the bringing about of cooperation in the field. The enmity and the military activity between Israel and the Palestinians, especially during recent months since the outbreak the intifada for the second time, have resulted in a drastic decline in cooperation that started initially at a slow and hesitant pace following the signing of the peace treaty with Jordan (1994). The fact that about 60% of the Jordanian population is of Palestinian origin, causes the Jordanian government to maintain a cautious stance in promoting cooperation with Israel. Thus, the development of Eilat and Aqaba as a bi-national city is, to a great extent, dependent on the advancement of the peace process between Israel and all its Arab neighbors, and especially on the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

SECULAR PILGRIMS ON THE QUEST FOR AUTHENTICITY?

In this paper I will explore the relation between the tourist and the place visited drawing on my own fieldwork among Finnish tourists in many Mediterranean tourist destinations, like Athens and Rhodes in Greece and Bodrum in Turkey, as well as Gran Canaria in Spain and Aqaba in Jordan. I will show that the tourists’ relations to the place visited varies very much. In some types of recreational mass tourism to beach resorts the local heritage or the spirit of place is of marginal importance. In other types of tourism, like cultural tourism to Athens, the importance of the place is central to the tourist experience and, thus, the journey can be described as a secular pilgrimage. In the paper I will from an emic perspective analyse the tourists’ experiences and compare cultural tourism to beach tourism in order to cast light on the tourists’ own experiences in both types. This analysis casts doubts on what could be called the “authenticity paradigm” in the anthropology and sociology of tourism. The aim of the paper is to enhance our understanding of different types of tourism, and especially to explore the tourists’ experiences in both site-oriented (heritage, cultural) tourism and image-oriented (beach, recreation) tourism. Tourism to the Mediterranean region and the Canary Islands has become an integral part of modern Finnish culture, which is indicated by the adoption of special terms into the spoken language. Finns very often refer to their holiday destinations with the concept “etela” (=south) without clarifying more exactly what geographical place they are talking about. Common phrases are “kavimme etelassa lomalla” (we went to the south on our holiday), “lahden etelanmatkalle” (I will go to the south), etc. The concept “etela” is widely used also in tourism marketing, especially in newspaper advertisements, sometimes without any clear indications of where this “south” is. (SELANNIEMI 1994b; 1996). The difference between the destinations I studied as well as the tourists travelling to these destinations comes forth very clearly in the motives for choosing a certain destination. When I asked tourists in my field work destinations why they had chosen this one, only the tourists in Athens (67%) and Aqaba (46%) answered that

Antimicrobial activity of some sponges from the Gulf of Aqaba

Antimicrobial activity of some sponges from the Gulf of Aqaba

The Aqaba Eartquake of November 22, 1995 and Co-Seismic Deformation in Sinai Peninsula, Deduced from Repeated GPS Measurements

The new techniques of space geodesy, especially the Global Positioning System (GPS), allow the monitoring of ongoing crustal deformation and provide a powerful tool for the analysis of the regional seismotectonic regime and characterization of current strain accumulation and release.

Coptic Glazed Ceramics from the Excavations at Aqaba, Jordan

Le terme de ceramique glacuree copte semble approprie etant donne qu'il a vu le jour en Egypte. Cette ceramique trouvee ici a Aqaba manifeste la continuite de la tradition ceramique copte au debut des Omeyyades

Assessment and applications of wind energy in Jordan

A technical and economic assessment has been made of the generation of electricity using windmills located at three most promising potential wind sites in Jordan: Ras Muneef (RA), Mafraq (MF), and Aqaba (AQ). The assessment was made for two different systems, one using a relatively large single windmill and the other using 25 small windmills arranged in a wind farm. The power output of each system at each site was determined, and the electricity-generating costs in each case were also determined and compared with the generating costs of generating electricity using steam or gas turbines, furnished by the Jordanian Electricity Authority (JEA). Finally, the possibility of water pumping from 30-m and 100-m deep wells using a windmill is investigated and the quantities of water pumping from these depths at each of the three sites are given.