Skift Take
Yes, the situation in Egypt is far from unclear, but you have to give the tourism authorities marks on trying desperately to gets its biggest industry back to normal, at least in media.
Egypt’s Minister of Tourism, HE Hisham Zaazou has revealed that the Egyptian Government is attempting to attract Arab Families with special offers in a bid to boost tourism figures.
Speaking at a satellite event scheduled for the ATM at Raffles Dubai, Zaazou also explained that live camera streams had been set up in popular tourist destinations to show how calm they are.
Related: Egypt: booze and bikinis are welcome, nevermind the Salafis
Despite Egypt’s current challenges, he emphasised that the Egyptian tourism sector was able to withstand negative impacts, adding that Egypt is still home to the most prominent historical, cultural and art events in the region in addition to maintaining its position as one of the top destinations of choice for tourists from around the world.
“Tourisms rates began to return to normal levels, and to move towards the high rates witnessed in 2010,” he asserted.
“The first three months of the year 2013 saw a growth in the number of tourists coming to Egypt, which amounted for 2.8 million, reflecting an increase of 14.6 % compared to the first quarter of 2012. We will be concentrating our efforts on various global markets and in particular the Arab markets, as the number of Arab tourists amounted for 520,000 this year which reflects an increase of 7.5% compared to the first quarter of 2012.”
HE also highlighted Egypt’s ranking as the 18th destination from the top fifty destinations worldwide and receiving the first place among the tourism destinations in MENA region during the year 2012.
“The Ministry, within its strategic plan, seeks to implement all necessary measures to enhance Egyptian tourism, whereby we will work on specific markets, including the Arab World, in addition to targeting new markets in South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico) and Asia (Malaysia, China, India, Korea and Vietnam),” Zaazou stated.
“We will also market Egypt in co-chaired trips to enhance tourist services in line with global standards, and we will work on further developing our human resources in the tourism sector.”
© 2013 ITP Business Publishing Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company
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