CAIRO – The Egyptian Tourism Authority (ETA) has set its sights on reviving the faltering tourism industry to levels beyond its boom times before the 2011 Arab Spring.
In 2011 rolling mass action popularised by the sea of protesters that swarmed Tahrir Square precipitated the spectacular fall of then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
Before the 2011 Arab Spring with 14.7 million tourists recorded in 2010, tourism accounted for over 11 percent of Egypt’s GDP and for one out of every eight jobs.
Tourism before 2011 generated revenue of US$12.5 billion for the Egyptian treasury but this has since dwindled.
Despite the insurgency and the resultant bomb blasts that have become a daytime nightmare in popular tourist destinations such as Aswan, the Egyptian tourism authority remains optimistic and says its target is 30 million tourists by 2020.
The Egyptian government led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has established an anti-terror unit solely to combat the insurgency.
Egypt famed for its awe-inspiring pyramids – that even with current technologies cannot be replicated – has taken a battering, says the tourism authority.
Media reports about the unrest coupled with Western travel warnings are partly to blame, as they put off holidaymakers from visiting the pyramids and ancient temples of Luxor dating back thousands of years.
The magnificent temple of Philae in Aswan and the church that hosts a well from which the Holy Family – Joseph, Mary and Jesus drank water from during their refuge in Old Cairo – are among key tourist attractions.
Khaled Ramy the advisor to the chairman of the ETA, Samy Mahmoud, told New Era upon enquiry that in 2007 around 11 million tourists streamed to Egypt and in 2008 the number increased to 12.8 million.
Ramy revealed that – in 2009 – this figure shrank slightly to 12.5 million but it peaked at 14.7 million tourists in 2010 shortly before the revolution of 2011 when it took a dive.
Even with dwindling tourism figures the number of tourists visiting Egypt could make other African countries envious as could be attested by the 9.9 million tourists that visited Egypt in 2014 way above what some stable countries are able to draw in a year.
“Our strategic objective is to attract 30 million tourists by 2020. We have exact plans to achieve this and we are ready with all our different marketing efforts,” enthused an upbeat Ramy.
Responding to a question on which attractions are more popular with tourists who account for 14.4 percent of foreign exchange receipts, he listed the pyramids “as still the major attraction and so are the different monuments along the Nile River”.
El Gouna, a private resort built on 8 million square metres of land with a cluster of 12 top-end hotels and real estate development, is also popular among tourist attractions.
Resorts at Taba Heights, Makadi Bay, Soma Bay and Sahl Hashish all overlooking the Red Sea are popular among foreign tourists.
Despite the insurgency, millions of holidaymakers still flock to Hurghada and to Sharm El Sheikh, he said adding that Russians account for over 3 million of the tourists.
The Russians are followed by UK residents, who account for almost a million tourists followed by Germans numbering almost 900 000 and then visitors from Ukraine, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Libya and Sudan collectively account for only 170 000.
As part of its efforts to meet the target of 30 million tourists by 2020, ETA would early next year host a mega tourism exhibition aimed to facilitate intra-African tourism, he said.