Egypt is going all out as it looks to rebuild its tourism business in the wake of the revolution that saw President Hosni Mubarak crowbarred from power.
Hisham Zaazou, senior assistant to Egypt’s Minister of Tourism tells 7DAYS that at the height of the revolution the country’s hotels saw an average occupancy of just eight per cent. He is candid about how badly tourism, a sector crucial to the Egyptian economy, which millions of people rely on to survive, has been hit following this year’s political unrest.
“Between February 1 and mid-April, we calculated approximately $1.8 billion of losses in revenue – directly, I am not speaking about taxes, I am not speaking about unemployment, I am speaking about direct loses. $1.8 billion. That is a lot of money,” he says.
Zaazou says that the industry has stopped haemorrhaging income to a certain extent, but gave the impression that the country is still desperate for visitors.
“The figure is getting better – for the second half of April until now, we have about 50 per cent occupancy,” he says.
Last month 7DAYS reported on the drought of tourism in Egypt. Omar Mohamed Saed, owner of a store selling copper goods in Khan el-Khalili, the main bazaar in Islamic Cairo, said since the revolution he could “hardly recall a single tourist coming into my shop.”
“The uprising killed us,” he added.
The Egyptian Tourism Ministry however, has rallied and is now fighting tooth and nail to revive one of its most important industries.
Zaazou confirmed that 200 million Egyptian pounds ($33 million) has been pledged in the short term to shore up the sector.
“I think the reality is that Egypt is still a big tour operators’ market,” he said. “We are going to give incentives to certain destinations for charter operations. We are telling them that ‘we are giving you an insurance policy, do not cancel your flight if you do not have enough on that flight… try to put up 50 per cent of the flight and we will pay you the difference’, subsidising the seats, for a period of time.”
He said this programme, with big tour operators such as Thomas Cook, will run to top tourist attractions like Sharm El Sheikh – where Mubarak is still receiving medical treatment – until the end of the October.
The efforts of the ministry don’t stop there. Zaazou’s department is paying “almost 50 per cent” of the bill for promotional costs incurred by tour operators.
Although Europe, and in particular Britain, is Egypt’s biggest source market for tourism, Zaazou says the repercussions of the revolt have seen the country shift its attention to other markets, including domestic tourism.
“To make use of the downtime of the international tourism we are trying to do something together with the banks to give people the chance to travel within Egypt and then pay in installments.”
Gulf countries are also helping to fill the void.
“We are looking to the Gulf countries and Morocco, they constitute for us approximately 14 per cent of the international tourism arrivals, about two million [visitors].”
Even with all these measures, Zaazou has already written off any growth this year, adding: “Our target is to achieve the 14.7 million tourists that we realised in 2010.” His own department predicts revenue will be down roughly 25 per cent this year.
“Last year we had a revenue of $12.5 billion, so if you take that off we will be in the neighborhood of $10 billion or slightly less than that – hopefully,” he said.
Despite its current challenges, Zaazou is keen to emphasise that Egypt is open for business.
“Please come and see for yourself… we are working very hard to make their visit pleasant.”
One Dubai–based tourist who recently visited Alexandria said they are succeeding. He said: “There didn’t seem to be many tourists… but other than a tank guarding the law courts there were no signs whatsoever that there had just been a revolution,” he said. “I would highly recommend going before it gets too busy.”