Algeria: When History Becomes a Geopolitical Instrument for Building Tourism Power
✍️ BY: Boubaker Abid
Translated by: Dr. Hana Saada
Algiers – December 2025 – Tourism is no longer, on the global stage, a conventional economic activity; it has evolved into a strategic lever, an active tool of soft power, and a platform through which states construct their image, affirm their sovereignty, and reinforce their presence within regional and international power dynamics.
Within this shifting landscape, Algeria possesses a rare advantage that only few nations can claim: an authentic, ancient, and profoundly layered history that stretches across civilizations.
From Tassili n’Ajjer—an authentic “African archive” of humanity—to the Numidian kingdoms that helped shape the Mediterranean world, and to Roman cities ranked among the best-preserved worldwide, Algeria emerges not merely as a country, but as a strategic space where major trajectories of human history intersect.
This civilizational heritage confers upon Algeria a multifaceted geopolitical legitimacy:
A continental legitimacy, rooted in the antiquity of its African civilizations;
A Mediterranean legitimacy, anchored in its historical centrality to regional exchanges;
A Maghrebian legitimacy, owed to its contribution to structuring power balances in North Africa;
And a global legitimacy, sustained by its independent diplomatic posture.
In a world waging an escalating battle over narratives and cultural influence, investing in Algerian history within the tourism sector is no longer a promotional gesture, but a strategic imperative for consolidating and projecting national identity.
It is:
– An affirmation that Algeria is not an emergent state, but an ancient civilization.
– A reminder that its geography has always been a crossroads of continents, not a peripheral margin.
– A presentation to the world of an authentic narrative, far from artificial, rootless tourism models.
Thus, historical, cultural, and memory-based tourism becomes an instrument of equilibrium and a means of projecting an image of stability, credibility, and respectability, while simultaneously reinforcing Algeria’s positioning within the dynamics of the Maghreb, the Sahel, Africa, and the Mediterranean.
This pursuit extends beyond the realm of travel; it concerns Algeria’s reconfiguration into the status that its history and civilizational role naturally confer within the map of contemporary power.
