Tour operator to relaunch Syria trips ‘as soon as possible’ – despite Foreign Office warning

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “Everything is in place already over there because it isn’t really that long since Syria was a big tourist destination in the Middle East.” As recently as 2011, organisations such as Explore, Voyages Jules Verne and the Royal Academy ran tours to Syria. UK citizens are told: “If you are a British national in Syria, leave the country by any practical means.” open image in gallery Danger zone: Foreign Office map of Syria The government travel warning has no legal effect, but travelling to a destination against Foreign Office advice invalidates standard travel insurance policies. “It would just be great to be able to get tourism booming over there again because they’ve had a very terrible time of it, from the civil war to Covid to the earthquake in Aleppo last year.” The tour operator said that many tourist attractions in Syria remain intact. Damascus was survived relatively unscathed.” Writing on Syria in The Independent in 2011, travel journalist Matthew Teller said: “Walking by the Mediterranean coast, threading through the timeless streets of Damascus or clambering around a desert citadel, it is hard to reconcile Syria as a ‘rogue state’.