An enduring ‘touristic miracle’ in Tunisia? Coping with old challenges after the revolution

By the end of the 1960s Tunisia had developed a very aggressive tourism policy designed to encourage foreign private investment in the sector. In fact tourism became one of the flagships of Tunisian development, strongly contributing to re-invent the international reputation of Tunisia as an open, ‘democratic and liberal’ country. Even if the political scenario has changed after the ‘Jasmine revolution’, continuity seems to prevail in the tourism sector. This paper focuses on this continuity, examining two specific dimensions: the persistence of Tunisia’s tourist model and the continuity in the representation of Tunisian tourism as the pillar of an everlasting process of change.