By BIANCA CARRERA

BRUSSELS - Algeria is probably one of the richest countries to visit in the world. It does not only host the vast majority of the Great Sahara Desert, covering over 80 percent of the country's total surface, but it is also home to an incredible coastline, and most importantly, to a wealth of centuries-old historical artefacts dating back all the way to the Berber, the Phoenician, the Roman, or the Muslim Almovarid and Fatimid empires.

If similar features have provided neighbouring Morocco and Tunisia with a bomb of tourism, with the number of tourists pre-Covid reaching 13 million in a single year to the former; Algeria only received two million by the end of 2019. Nadine Benmokhtari, who has lived his whole life in Algiers, says that if you visited Algeria "you would not see a trace of tourists, only Algerians".