Tunisia sees thousands more Chinese tourists in 2017

New analysis released by Tunisia's National Tourist Office shows the number of Chinese tourists who visited the northern African country through 2017 increased by more than 150 percent, making China the country's fastest-growing source market for tourists, reports Xinhua on December 26, 2017.

Undated photo shows tourists riding camels in the Sahara Desert, Douz, Tunisia. [File photo: IC]

18,361 Chinese tourists visited the country in 2017. The sharp rise is being attributed to the visa-free exemption for Chinese tourists launched in February.

Overall, around 6.7 million people visited Tunisia through the year, an increase of around 23-percent.

Tourism revenues in Tunisia hit 1.12 billion U.S. dollars as of December, an increase of around 3 percent compared to 2016.

Despite the sharp rise in Chinese tourists, Arab countries are still the main source of tourists for Tunisia.

The country saw 3.66 million visitors arriving from Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania this year.

Adjacent to the Mediterranean, Tunisia has long been considered "Europe's backyard" in Africa.

However, Tunisia was hit by three separate terrorist attacks in 2015 which targeted foreigners, dealing a severe setback to the country's tourism sector.