Algerian vacationers face high costs at home

2009-06-26

Despite Algeria's considerable tourist potential, the cost of summer season lodging has forced many citizens to go elsewhere on holiday.

By Nazim Fethi and Hayam El Hadi for Magharebia in Algiers – 25/06/09

[Nazim Fethi] Algerian holidaymakers seeking summer lets face high prices and limited availability.

Even thought the summer season has just begun, it is already proving a headache for many Algerian families. Faced with limited hotel options and high prices, Algerians are finding it difficult to afford vacations in their own country.

With the holy month of Ramadan beginning in the third week of August this year, everyone began looking for rental accommodations earlier than usual. Hotels and official campsites were fully booked months ahead, despite their high prices. As demand for what little remained went up, so did the cost.

The 1,200 kilometre coast is under siege from wealthy summer holidaymakers – mostly returning expatriates. Regular Algerians may now find themselves a long way from the beach.

The limited availability of lodgings has sparked a growing demand for rental apartments, where middle-class families can go on holiday at reasonable prices. Property owners rent out their houses during the summer season to make a little extra money, while families find more affordable lodging – and greater privacy – than in hotels. Everyone benefits.

Not all summer properties are priced fairly. However, in coastal towns and cities such as Bejaïa, hundreds of unlicensed estate agencies spring up as each summer approaches.

Abdelhakim Aouidet, the vice-president of the national federation of real estate agents, feels that "parasites" who demand soaring rental prices during the summer season have forced many Algerian families to opt for less pricey vacations in Tunisia.

"In Bejaïa and Jijel, the cost of renting a villa can be as much as 1,500 euros (153,438 dinars) for two weeks," Aouidet says. "The authorities must intervene."

In an attempt to regulate this kind of letting arrangement, the government issued a directive to local officials in coastal towns requiring property owners declare the names of summer season tenants. But there is a risk that the directive will be ignored, given that many owners do not intend to pay tax for seasonal lets.

"I rent out one floor of my villa during the month of July, so that I can put a bit of money aside. If I declare it to the Town Hall, they're going to tax me. I’d end up making nothing," says Hamid, a sixty-year-old living in Lâaouana, near Jijel.

In this popular coastal town, hotels are still too few and too expensive. There are no more than a dozen hotels and just a handful of official campsites for the influx of more than eight million holidaymakers, according to figures from the local tourist office.

"Did you know that one night in a large Algerian hotel can cost more than 10,000 dinars without breakfast?" asks Naima, a university lecturer with two children, who still needs to find somewhere for the holidays.

"Holidays are sacrosanct for me and for my family. I work all year and I think I deserve some time to rest. It's the same for my children; they have a long year at school and they need to be able to unwind. The prices are excessive," she complains.

Rachid, a former tourism ministry employee now working as a travel agent, says that Algeria has huge potential: "Holidaymakers have everything they need to have fun and amuse themselves. They can choose between the sea, the mountains or the Great South."

Even so, he tells Magharebia, local customers are unmoved.

"The prices in the major hotels or seaside resorts are unattractive because they're so high. This kind of tourism doesn't interest the middle classes," Rachid adds.

The limited availability of reasonably-priced summer lets only increases the competition.

Salim, a 50-year-old from Algiers, managed to secure an apartment in Kaous, 15 kilometres from the coast. It was not easy.

"A neighbour in the district got in touch with their cousin. It's a bit of a way from the beach, but I have wheels, so it's not a problem. The apartment's costing me 2,000 dinars a day. I won't get anything cheaper anywhere else," he says.

For Salima, a teacher and mother of two, the search has proved frustrating. "I've been to Jijel and Bejaïa. What I found was beyond my means. Imagine it – a tent on a campsite costs 150,000 dinars for just ten days," she tells Magharebia.

"At those prices, I could holiday like a queen in Tunisia or Turkey."

[Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images] Domestic vacations in spots like Sidi Faraj are priced out of reach for many Algerians.

Young people have found one way to get around the inflated holiday costs: they pool together to rent out apartments – sometimes even garages.

Student Omar and his friends cannot afford to go on holiday abroad. They found a neighbour in Algiers who was able to rent out his garage in Jijel for 20,000 dinars for the month. They saved up for several months to get the money they needed.

"It doesn't really matter where you spend the night. The important thing is to enjoy the sea," Omar tells us.

Not everyone is happy about this new trend.

In Bejaïa, a slow town becomes a tourist hot spot every summer. "It's impossible to sleep with all the row made by the holidaymakers and their constant comings and goings. And when you complain, they tell you: we're on holiday. It's hell. Am I going to rent somewhere too, to escape this situation? Everyone around me says I should. But where would I go? I don't have anywhere else. It's my only home," he complains.

The only people who do not seem to have been affected by the high cost and limited availability of holiday lodgings are white-collar workers for state-owned companies.

"My employer rents out bungalows in tourist complexes every year," says Hicham, who works in a public construction company. "Thanks to the union's social fund, we pay just 25% of the real cost of the holiday. This means we can spend ten days at the seaside. We can also help out other family members, who will come and take our places in the bungalows."

Mouna, a management secretary, had to tag along with her banker brother to get a few days' holiday with her son in a complex rented by the bank. "Were it not for that opportunity, I'd have stayed at home," she says.

The tourism sector in general, and lets in particular, have suffered some neglect in Algeria.

"There's no guiding policy for the tourism sector. The public sector hotels have been privatised. Others are completely dilapidated. It's quite natural that prices will be excessive when the offer is limited. If the balance between quality and price is to be restored, we need more investment and daring policies," travel agent Rachid tells us.

Last May, the tourism ministry set up a master plan to encourage local tourism and improve the service offered in existing hotels.

If successful, the government initiative will help Algerian holidaymakers spend their summer vacations on their own country's beaches, rather than on the Tunisian coast.