It comes in the week of the one year anniversary of the gunning down of 38 tourists – including 30 Britons – in Sousse by an Islamic extremist. Since the massacre Tunisia has been implementing security measures in a bid to encourage the UK Foreign Office to lift its travel advice.

Security is now included as a priority in hotel inspections and the country has been building a fence along its border with Libya to try to keep out Islamic militants.

This week Tunisia’s director general of security also announced that 72 additional police posts were being added in tourist zones, along with 1,500 more police officers.

However, on Monday Tunisian authorities decided to prolong the country’s state of emergency for a further month, meaning that public gatherings are forbidden, as are strikes. The state of emergency has been in place since November when 12 presidential guards were attacked and killed in the capital Tunis.

The crucial FCO advice warning Britons against travel to Tunisia also remains in place. Andy Cooper of Owens-Cooper Consulting, and a former Thomas Cook head of public affairs, said the FCO would be particularly cautious about lifting it.

“The ban will only be lifted when the FCO is completely confident that it’s safe. With some destinations, normally they tend to be more relaxed with the advice, but in view of what happened they have to be completely certain that it’s safe there,” he told TTG.

“They won’t lift it until they can actually see that there’s nothing happening and that Tunisia is controlling the borders.”

Cooper also agreed with Tui UK managing director Nick Longman, who said earlier this month that Tunisia would take longer to recover than other destinations.

“The nature of what happened will affect customers. Tunisia will come back,” Longman insisted at the recent ITT Conference, “but it will take longer.”

Cooper agreed, adding: “Even when the travel advice is relaxed, I suspect that tour operators will be cautious about returning. It will come back but it will be gradual and slow – people have to be confident to travel.”

Meanwhile, BA announced on Tuesday that it was abandoning its plans to return to Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt. The airline had previously suggested that it could return to the Red Sea resort in early October but said in a statement this week: “The safety and security of our customers will always be our top priorities and we have suspended our flights from Gatwick to Sharm el Sheikh indefinitely.

“Customers who hold bookings on any cancelled services for the coming winter season can claim a full refund or can use the money to cover a new booking with us for an alternative destination.”

Flights from the UK to Sharm el Sheikh have been banned since the downing of a Russian jet last October, which killed all 224 people onboard.

Tui said there was no change to its plans to reinstate flights on September 29. Thomas Cook said it was still hoping to reinstate flights from November 1.