The ongoing US-British offensive in Iraq has killed tourism in the southern red-rose archeological site of Petra with its imposing tombs sculpted into the rock just as it has crippled it around the Roman temples of Jerash in the north.

Jordan has been striving hard to shake of a slump in visitors, which followed the outbreak of the Palestinian intifada against Israeli rule two and a half years ago and was later compounded due to cancellations after the September 11 attacks.

From Petra to Jerash, shops and stalls manned by souvenir hawkers are closing one after the other with tourist guides desperately seeking to recycle themselves in new jobs.

"In March I earned only 23 dinars (35 dollars) while during a normal year I would have made 1,000 dinars (1,400 dollars)," tour guide Wasfi Jarallah told AFP during a visit to Jerash.

The 30-year-old who speaks fluent French graduated from the university of Irbid, in northern Jordan, complains sadly that he is quickly running out of money.

Other tour guides who faced the same predicament have been putting their linguistic skills at the service of journalists -- the only tourists to fill up Amman hotels which usually thrive with holidaymakers at the start of the spring.

"Normally, in this season, several hundreds of tourists visit Jerash but today there are only journalists," said Jarallah, whose father is among those who had to shut down his souvenirs shop, while his brother has gone job-hunting in Amman.

The column-dotted streets of the ancient Roman city of Jerash are eerily calm but still this has not discouraged a lone postcard vendor from manning his usual spot on a corner of Cardo Maximus, the main street that cuts through Jerash.

"This year is already lost," says Marwan Khoury, the director general of Jordan's tourism board, as he recalls that the past two years were not better.

"The day after September 11, around 65 percent of reservations were cancelled," Khoury said.

The terror attacks against the United States prompted North American and European visitors to reconsider trips to the Middle East.

"Our main market are the Western countries but now we are concentrating on the Arab market and we are trying to open new markets like eastern Europe and especially Russia," Khoury said.

Income from tourism accounts for 8.5 percent from Jordan's gross domestic product, according to figures from the Jordanian tourism board, which puts the total number of tourists who visit the kingdom annually at 1.4 million.

Tourism, which employs 100,000 people, is also Jordan's second source of foreign income, after receipts from Jordanians working abroad.

SPACE.WIRE