Tunisia’s Medinas Beyond Tunis: The Interior Cities International Tourism Has Ignored

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Sections of Kairouan’s medina wall have collapsed. UNESCO sent expert missions in May 2024 and January 2025 to plan their restoration. The wall warns of Tunisia’s medinas outside the capital: the towns with the deepest history draw the shortest visits.

In that same period, Tunisia posted the best tourism results in its history. Tourism Minister Sofiane Tekaia announced on 22 December 2025 that arrivals had passed 11 million for the first time, and called the result a ‘genuine recovery’. The total beat the 2019 record of about 9.4 million visitors and strengthens Tunisia’s bid to rank among Africa’s top three destinations, alongside Morocco and Egypt.

The money is real. Central Bank of Tunisia data show tourism receipts of 8,096.9 million dinars in 2025, up 6.5% from 7,599.7 million dinars in 2024. The question is where that money lands. Those two facts belong in one story. Record crowds sleeping on the coast and reaching the interior, if at all, on a day trip. The bed count shows the imbalance. In 2023, Tunisia had 230,700 accommodation places, and more than 95% of facilities stood on the east coast. The Sbeitla–Kasserine region had 937 beds.

This article follows four towns, Kairouan, Le Kef, Testour and Tozeur, each with a founding story centuries older than the country’s beach resorts. It asks a plain question: who gains when a medina receives an overnight guest, and who loses when it receives none? The answer decides whether a record year pays for anything that lasts.

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The RCA Argument 

Why Tunisia’s Medinas Beyond the Coast Stay Empty

Tunisia built its tourism on sea, sun and sand, and the map still shows it. Coastal airports at Tunis, Monastir and Djerba handle more than 90% of the country’s international air traffic. Two regions dominate the bed count: Nabeul–Hammamet–Yasmine Hammamet, with 60,800 places, and Djerba–Zarzis and Gabès, with 53,100, according to 2023 data.

The strain shows. Average occupancy in 2023 reached only 38.7%, yet more than 60% of arrivals and overnight stays fell between June and September. In July and August, resorts such as Yasmine Hammamet, Sousse and Djerba ran at 80% to 90% of capacity. The same researchers flagged Nabeul–Hammamet and Monastir–Skanes as the regions at greatest risk of overtourism and found eight other tourist regions with room to grow.

The pattern is old. In 2010, about 90% of all bed nights went to coastal resorts, according to Office National du Tourisme Tunisien figures cited in an academic study. A 1990s push to lure resort guests into the desert largely failed to keep them inland.

The image sticks because the industry built it. A Japan International Cooperation Agency study published in 2001 found that 82% of respondents linked Tunisia mainly with coastal tourism. Twenty-five years on, the data show the itinerary still starts at the water.

Neighbours supply much of the volume. In 2024, nearly 3.5 million Algerians and 2.25 million Libyans visited Tunisia. The published figures do not show how many of them stayed in inland medinas, and that gap in the data is itself a problem for anyone planning inland tourism.

Little of that revenue reaches the interior. The authors of the 2025 study describe Sahara trips from Tozeur and Douz as one-day excursions from coastal resorts and say the desert remains an optional add-on rather than a destination. They also report that most profits from mass tourism go to coastal operators, while hotel work in the oases is seasonal and poorly paid.

Le Kef, Testour and Tozeur: Tunisia’s Medinas Still Waiting for a Crowd

Le Kef climbs the southern face of Jebel Dyr in Tunisia’s north-west. It began as a Numidian city, passed to Rome and Byzantium, and later served as an Ottoman garrison town whose kasbah guarded the frontier with Algeria. The Sidi Bou Makhlouf mausoleum, with its ribbed white domes and octagonal minaret clad in emerald-green ceramics, is the best-known monument, and an 18th-century religious building now houses a museum of art and popular traditions.

Heritage researchers say the city rarely appears on international itineraries. Majdi Faleh, an academic fellow in cultural heritage at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, and Asma Gharbi and Nourchen Ben Fatma of the Université de Carthage in Tunisia wrote in April 2024 that Tunisia has not promoted the region as an international heritage asset. Beyond its jazz and short-film festivals, they argued, its heritage sites hold ‘unrealised potential’ for economic growth.

Testour tells a different story. Andalusian exiles settled it in 1609. One of them, Muhammad Tagharinu, built its Great Mosque, whose 22.5-metre minaret and courtyard sundial, dated 1761, still mark the skyline.

The town keeps that inheritance alive. Its pomegranate festival, which Testour launched in 2016 and holds across the last week of October and the first week of November, draws Tunisians from across the country. Rachid Soussi, a Testour municipality official who helped launch it, told The National in November 2024 that residents see the fruit as a symbol of resilience and beauty.

In Tozeur, the old quarter of Ouled el-Hadef dates to the 14th century. Its builders set pale bricks in raised geometric patterns that vary endlessly from wall to wall, and families still live behind the façades. Yet the 2025 study lists Tozeur among the desert stops that visitors reach as one-day excursions from coastal resorts. Three towns, three founding stories, one shared problem. Each gives a reason to stay overnight, yet the trade sells them as stops on the way to something else.

What Tunisia Must Change Before the Next Record Year

Tunisia’s authorities accept part of this argument. According to Tunisian Monitor in July 2025, the Ministry of Tourism, supported by National Tourism Office director Mehdi Haloui, wants a ‘plural tourism’ model that pairs coastal strengths with alternative offers. Guesthouses in restored medina homes, troglodyte houses and renovated kasbahs already show what that could look like. Tunisia will not reach the top three in Africa on beach beds alone.

Plural tourism needs three practical shifts. First, beds: Kairouan, Le Kef and Tozeur need small, resident-run guesthouses, not only coach stops. UNESCO’s call for joint management with residents gives Kairouan a ready framework. Second, money: authorities should ring-fence entry income in conservation zones for repairs, starting with Kairouan’s wall. Third, packaging: operators should sell these towns as a multi-night inland circuit, not a lunch break between beaches. Specialist operators already run such routes, and one 2026 itinerary links Le Kef, Dougga, Kairouan and Tozeur.

Travellers can act without waiting for policy. Book at least two nights in one inland town, choose a resident-run guesthouse, hire a local guide, and buy directly from artisans. Travel outside June to September, when more than 60% of arrivals crowd the coast, and choose the cooler months for the south, where the 2025 study records maximum temperatures of up to 48°C.

Tunisia is preparing to serve as Arab Tourism Capital in 2027, and it has a few months to decide what that year will mean. If it sends visitors to Kairouan’s ramparts, Le Kef’s kasbah and Tozeur’s brick lanes, ‘plural tourism’ becomes policy. If not, another record year will arrive, and the walls will keep falling. We take the view that a record year which leaves Kairouan’s wall unrepaired has counted the wrong thing. Watch whether the 2027 programme names one inland medina with a funded repair plan and beds to match.

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) And Answers

Which medinas in Tunisia are UNESCO World Heritage Sites?

Three: the Medina of Tunis, the Medina of Sousse and Kairouan. UNESCO inscribed Kairouan in 1988, and it is the only one of the three that lies inland. The medina of Sfax, founded in 849 on the orders of the Aghlabid emirs of Kairouan, sits on Tunisia’s Tentative List but is not yet inscribed.

Is Kairouan worth more than a day trip?

Yes. A longer stay gives you time for the Great Mosque, the Aghlabid reservoir outside the town and the medina itself, without a coach schedule. It also puts money into a city that Britannica describes as the Maghreb’s principal holy city and whose wall UNESCO has reviewed for restoration.

What makes Tozeur’s old quarter different from other Tunisian medinas?

Ouled el-Hadef dates to the 14th century. Its builders set pale bricks in raised geometric patterns that vary from wall to wall, and families still live there.

Why does Testour feel Andalusian?

Andalusian exiles settled Testour in 1609. One of them, Muhammad Tagharinu, built the Great Mosque, whose minaret rises 22.5 metres. The town now marks that heritage with a pomegranate festival each autumn.

When should I visit Tunisia’s interior medinas?

Outside June to September, when more than 60% of arrivals crowd the coast (2023 data). For Tozeur and the desert south, where maximum temperatures reach 48°C, choose the cooler months.