Keep Egypt back on track

Egypt is eager to get back on track with its depressed tourist sector which took a nose dive since "revolution" took hold of the country, just over a year ago. Tourism dropped 33% in 2011, over 2010 figures. Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, Egypt's Minister of Tourism has benchmarked 2017 as the year to surpass the 30 million visitor mark – up from last year's drop of about 10 million. At the ITB Berlin, the minister underlined the country's strong potential at diversifying its tourism sector. He put focus on attracting religious and adventure travellers – boasting Egypt's ancient religious sites that are holy to both Christians and Muslims. Furthermore, he told reporters that his country was going to invest more into eco-tourism projects. Egypt expects future growth in incoming tourism to be fueled by Argentina, Brazil, China and India. However, currently, most visitors to Egypt hail from Europe and Egypt's tourism authorities know how imperative it will be to find ways to attracting visitors back to the Nile valley – if the country is to have any kind of fiscal sustainability – being extremely dependent on tourism capital. A round-table discussion at the ITB Berlin brought together Egypt's Deputy Minister of Tourism, Hisham Zaasou and Amr El Ezabi, Chairman of the Egyptian Tourism Authority together with some of the biggest names of the tourism industry - namely: Paul Schwaiger, Sun Express; Peter Fankhauser, CEO Thomas Cook; Peter-Mario Kubsch, Managing Director of Studiosus Study and Language Travel; Volker Boettcher, Managing Director TUI; Detlef Altmann, AirBerlin; and Soeren Hartmann, Head of Rewe Touristik. All present were very optimistic about Egypt's future in tourism. They applauded the Egyptian government's offer to instill financial incentives to attract tour operators back into the country. Hisham Zaasou promised that the government would review the country's extremely high airport tax and make efforts at lowering it – an issue which was most pressing for Paul Schwaiger of Sun Express, a smaller destination-based carrier. Both Schwaiger and Detlef Altmann of Air Berlin, Germany's second largest carrier with the highest frequency of flights to Egypt were optimistic that their current capacity of 80% would go up in the near future, if political demonstrations stayed at a minimum and if airport taxes could be lowered or offset by subsidies. Both lamented that the combination of the Egyptian landing tax and the newly year-old German departure tax – as well as a proposed EU tax – were detriments to their business. Thomas Cook's CEO, Peter Fankhauser believes that if the Egyptians will find a way to offset these costs, then tourism will be back on track sooner than expected – although he was not as optimistic as Hisham Zaasou, who suggested that 2010 levels could be achieved again by the end of this year. Airlines such as Air Berlin and Sun Express were able to maintain modestly filled flights – but only due to their service to destinations on the Sinai Peninsula – far from the Cairo demonstrations. However, tourism to the Nile Valley, including Cairo was rock-bottom. Air Berlin and the TUI Group were able to offset a lot of these losses by encouraging would-be Egypt travellers to go to the Canary Islands instead – a medium haul destination attractive to Central European travelers. However, Peter-Mario Kubsch, Managing Director of the Studiosus Travel Company was less optimistic than most other members of the round table discussion. Studiosus, which offers a combination of study and language travel, is very dependent on cultural and urban centers such as Cairo. His company's segment of the Egyptian tourism market dropped dramatically – despite the fact that incidences against tourists were low to non-existent, even in the Nile valley. "There is still too much uncertainty," Kusch believes. He underlined that a study trip to Egypt simply needs to include Cairo – adding that resort holiday attracts a completely different segment of travellers. Despite his uncertainly, Kusch was optimistic that those people not going to Egypt now were only postponing their trip there rather than cancelling it all together. Volker Boettcher of TUI agreed with Kusch in sustaining that resort tourism would be the first segment to recover – being far away from the political unrest and demonstrations that have occurred frequently over the past year in the urban centers of the Nile, primarily Cairo. The steady rise in resort tourism, on the Sinai, supports this view, according to Boettcher. Boettcher's confidence was also underlined in his company's current investment in their properties located in Egypt. "We would not be investing millions into our properties in Egypt if we did not see a bright future there," Boettcher said. Although Soeren Hartmann of Rewe Touristik does not agree that 2010 levels will be reached by the end of 2012, he does agree with Boettcher about the bright future. "Bookings are going up steadily. Also, it is amazing how fast customers forget about unrest which canvassed our television screens... As soon as political issues are out of the news, the traveler will come back," Hartmann believes. Hartmann does agree that business will grow dramatically by the 2012/2013 winter season – perhaps not as high as the Egyptians anticipate. He believes that needs to go up because the only other mid-haul destination available to his customers, the Canary Islands, cannot compete with the cultural heritage of Egypt. "You can only recommend them to detour to the Canary Islands once or twice – but not indefinitely," Hartmann said. Both Hisham Zaasou and Amr El Ezabi were confident that Egypt’s current role as ITB-Berlin "Partner Country" would give their country the necessary boost to regain confidence among the tourist operators. "In 2011, we have clearly segmented Egypt tourism between 'Red Sea' and the 'Rest of Egypt'. Losses were around the Nile valley. But increases are very evident at the Red Sea – a resort destination. Now we need to invest and communicate that that things are stable in the Nile valley and that demonstrations are completely contained at one square in Cairo. If people can understand that, then they will return with confidence," El Ezabi believes. For now, all agree: business for the resort sector, mostly based in the Sinai will see significant growth continue. "If these numbers can go up further, if tour operators will come back in droves, then this will be good for us," Detlef Altmann said. "We only hope that they will share their growth with us," Peter Fankhauser added, tongue and cheek.

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