Local travel agencies in Shanghai announced that they had not organized package tours to blast-hit Amman recently, a reporter of the Xinwen Evening News learnt this morning, hours after the series of terrorist blasts on Wednesday night that rocked three hotels in Amman, the capital of Jordan.

"Jordan isn't a travel destination popular with local people," Wang Yan, a manager with Shanghai Airlines Tours International Co. Ltd. (SATI) said. Although local travel agencies doing international business have been granted permission to organize package tours to Jordan, they are attracting few customers. "Few people ask for the tour. We organize only a few Jordan-bound trips in all the year," Wang said.

Besides SATI, China Travel International Co. Ltd. is also among the few local travel agencies who have ever organized tours there. Both said no groups were traveling in Jordan when the blasts went off. In addition, they aren't sending tour groups to Jordan for the time being.

There's no direct air route linking Amman and Shanghai. Planes reach Amman via Doha in Qatar or Dubai in the Arab Emirates. The inconvenience could be another reason why such a small number of local travel agencies are organizing tours there.a

Despite the blasts, local airports will still see flights to the region taking-off tonight as normal. This afternoon at around 1:00pm and 3:00pm, flights from Doha and Dubai are expected to arrive here, perhaps carrying some passengers from Amman. 

(Shanghai Daily November 11, 2005)