Folk dancers, patriotic songs and a comedy play packed Al Hussein Public Parks this week as Amman’s summer festival hit its sixth night of free entertainment. The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and Zain Jordan are running the 18th edition of the Amman Summer Festival at no charge through Friday.
Jordan’s tourism revenue fell 9.5% to $2.17 billion in the first four months of 2026, the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) reported, as war fallout from Iran to Gaza kept foreign visitors away from Petra and the Dead Sea. The vendors, folk troupes and shuttle drivers working Al Hussein Parks this week are getting paid regardless.
A Free Stage Fills Al Hussein Parks
The sixth evening opened with the Masaya Folklore and Heritage Troupe, performing traditional Jordanian folk dances and music tied to the kingdom’s heritage. A comedy called “Ashan Al-Mal Rohna Shamal,” or “We Went North for the Money,” followed to an enthusiastic crowd.
Singers Najm Al Salman and Mahmoud Sultan closed the main stage with patriotic numbers, Jordanian folk songs and classic Arabic favorites. Children’s programming ran alongside it: storytelling, face painting, interactive games and prize giveaways, part of a schedule GAM runs daily from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.
A marketplace beside the main stage sells traditional handicrafts, heritage products and local food to anyone who walks in, since GAM charges nothing at the gate. Zain Jordan, a leading Jordanian mobile operator, is the festival’s strategic partner again this year. Free parking and shuttle service run visitors into and out of the park every night of the run.
Jordan’s Tourism Revenue Just Had a Rough Four Months
CBJ released that four month figure in May, alongside sharper monthly detail. April alone brought in $517.1 million, down 27.2% from a year earlier.
Petra took the hardest hit. Adnan Sawa’ir, chairman of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority’s board of commissioners, told Xinhua that March booking cancellations at the ancient site hit 100%, with April cancellations running at 60% and May at 45%.
The trigger was the wider war involving Iran, Israel and the United States, including the collapsing ceasefire near the Strait of Hormuz, layered on losses Jordan was already absorbing from the war in Gaza. Jordan briefly closed its own airspace in the spring, grounding flights and adding to the cancellations.
Imad Hijazeen, Jordan’s minister of tourism and antiquities, said the kingdom formed an emergency team to track the war’s effect on bookings and air traffic.
The four month drop looks sharper against Jordan’s recent run of tourism years.
| Period | Visitors | Tourism Revenue | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 6.35 million | JD 5.25 billion (about $7.4 billion) | pre-Gaza-war baseline |
| 2024 | 6.108 million | JD 5.132 billion | down 3.9% visitors, 2.3% revenue |
| 2025 | 7.04 million | JD 5.523 billion | up 7.6% revenue, visitors above 2023 |
| Jan to Apr 2026 | 2.014 million international arrivals | $2.17 billion | down 9.5% revenue |
Full year revenue climbed 7.6% in 2025. That recovery reversed within the first four months of 2026.
Vendors Bet on Local Foot Traffic
GAM has described the event’s goal as helping to “boost tourism and provide an additional attraction for tourists in Amman, while offering a family-friendly atmosphere.” The market stalls fit that mission on a small scale. GAM described its bazaar after last year’s festival as a way to support domestic products and grow the involvement of Jordanian families who produce them.
Tourism accounts for a sizable share of Jordan’s GDP and ranks among its top sources of foreign exchange, alongside jobs in hospitality, transport, retail and heritage sites such as Petra, the Dead Sea and Wadi Rum. The finance ministry was already running a wider budget gap before this year’s war fallout hit.
Jordan’s budget deficit reached JD 1.08 billion in the first half of 2025, about $1.5 billion, nearly 40% wider than the year before. A free festival will not close that gap. It keeps some spending moving inside the country while foreign arrivals stay down.
Eighteen Editions, One Playbook
This year’s event is the 18th edition GAM has organized under the Amman Summer Festival name, following the 17th in 2025 and the 16th in 2024. Last year’s edition closed after eight days with a folkloric performance by the Zaha Cultural Center band, alongside handicraft and heritage bazaars GAM said drew a large public audience throughout.
The format has narrowed with age. A 2006 edition of the festival, staged under the patronage of Prince Raad Bin Zeid, spread performances across Prince Rashid Street, Hashemite Square and Al-Wakalat Street in addition to King Hussein Parks. This year’s festival runs from a single site, Al Hussein Public Parks, over eight nights.
The bazaar idea itself has stayed constant since those early editions: local goods sold to whoever shows up, whether the year is a boom or a bust for outside visitors.
Can Jordan’s Tourism Sector Turn a Corner in 2026?
Jordan is betting on more flights, longer visas and a wider spread of source markets to pull its tourism sector out of a war driven slump, and the early evidence is mixed. Air capacity is expanding and monthly arrivals have ticked up, but Petra’s own tourism authority still reports cancellation rates as high as 45% for bookings months out.
- Visa on arrival extended – stays allowed at the border reportedly grew from 30 days to three months in early 2026.
- Ryanair capacity – the carrier added 84 weekly flights from Amman last winter and was discussing an expansion that could grow its Jordan routes from 18 to 50.
- Jordan Tourism Board plan – a strategy built on digital marketing, international exhibitions, diversified source markets and longer average stays.
Air links are part of that bet. Flag carrier Royal Jordanian’s resumed Vienna flights out of Amman fit the same push to widen the kingdom’s links to Europe.
“With better air connectivity and a diversified tourism product, Jordan is well positioned to move beyond the 2024 dip,” one regional travel analyst said.
Not everyone reads the numbers the same way.
- Recovery optimists point to expanded air routes and a broader tourism product as reasons Jordan can grow again once regional flare ups cool.
- Structural pessimists note the decline hit every inbound visitor nationality alike, a sign they read as deeper than one bad season.
- Petra’s own tourism authority still reported cancellation rates as high as 45% for bookings months away, even as national arrivals data show a small monthly uptick.
Friday marks the Amman Summer Festival’s final night of 2026. The stage lights and market stalls come down this weekend. Whether the wider recovery holds will show up in the next round of Central Bank data, not in this week’s crowd counts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Jordanians also cut back on their own travel in 2026?
Yes. Outbound spending by Jordanian travelers fell 12.9% to $562.6 million in the first four months of 2026, and April alone saw outbound spending drop 33.7% to about $103 million, showing the pullback in travel spending was not limited to visitors avoiding Jordan.
Are Jordan’s tourist arrival numbers still falling?
Not every month. Monthly arrivals rose to about 771,000 in April 2026 from roughly 736,600 in March, even as tourism revenue kept falling, which suggests visitors kept arriving but spent less per trip than a year earlier.
Which Jordanian attractions held up better than Petra?
Sites closer to Amman fared better through the slump. The Dead Sea drew 2.717 million visitors in the first half of 2025, up 14%, while the Jordan Museum and the Roman ruins at Jerash logged 11,812 and 9,825 visits in the first two weeks of January 2026 alone.
How does the Jerash Festival compare with Amman’s Summer Festival?
Jerash’s festival is decades old and staged inside the ancient Greco-Roman city 46 kilometers north of Amman, drawing Jordanian and Arab performers across multiple stages each summer.
Who sponsors the Amman Summer Festival?
Zain Jordan is the festival’s strategic partner for a fifth consecutive year in 2026, working with GAM to fund the free evening programming and family activities at Al Hussein Parks.
