Under the title “Egypt’s Tourism Crisis…Challenges & Opportunities”, the Canada Egypt Business Council (CEBC) and the Egyptian Council for Sustainable Development (ECSD) hosted a Q&A session featuring H.E. Mohamed Yehia Rashed Minister of Tourism. Esteemed guests and previous ministers including Dr Mostafa Al Saeed, Dr. Hassan Younes, Dr. Ibrahim Fawzy, Dr. Safwat El Nahas, Dr. Hany Helal, Eng. Alaa Fahmy, Dr. Osama Heikal, Councilor Farouk Sultan, Councilor Adly Hussein, and Dr. Maher El Domiaty attended the discussion, as well as CEBC’s and ECSD’s esteemed members, guests, businessmen and reporters. Ambassadors of Albania, Belarus, Belgium, Malta, Mexico, Panama, Slovekia, as well as the Canadian Ambassador to Egypt Troy Lulashnyk were also in attendance.

In his opening remarks Eng. Motaz Raslan noted that Egypt has recently lost its positioning as one of the top tourist destinations around the world; plummeting to 36 out of the top 50 most visited countries in the year 2015. Previously in 2010, Egypt held the 18th position with more than 14 million tourists visiting Egypt that year. He added that the tourism sector has suffered the most from the political struggles that have been taking place in Egypt.

These were sparked by the 2011 revolution and its aftermaths, including violence, acts of terrorism, and security vacuums. To add, the biggest blow to the tourism sector and the Egyptian economy occurred following the bombing of the Russian aircraft over Sinai in October 2015. Since then, the Egyptian economy has been struggling due to the loss of foreign currency in the country. To highlight the critical importance of the tourism sector, Raslan stated a few facts: The tourism sector constitutes 11% of the GDP, it generates 20% of foreign currency entering the country, and it employs millions of workers.

Minister Mohamed Yehia Rashed assumed the floor and highlighted that the ministry is working on three main objectives to execute for the upcoming period: The first is modernizing the tourism industry by facilitating the arrival of tourists to Egypt while making the experience easy, fast, and positive. The second is diversifying the geographical locations of tourism, and the third is increasing and diversifying air travel routes.

The floor was then opened for a lengthy Q&A session where many of the events’ esteemed guests asked the minister questions as well as gave their comments about the tourism industry.

Below is a summary of the points that minister Rashed raised during the session:

The entire tourism industry needs to be digitized. The ministry is working on developing a web portal that is set to be available in more than 14 languages.

We are aiming to create an overall “culture of tourism” This would provide a long-term and sustainable plan for brining tourists to Egypt, and entice them to repeat their visits. Youngsters as well need to be educated on the importance of tourism to Egypt.

The ministry is educating as well as motivating people in the hospitality and tourism industry on the importance of etiquette and good manners.

There is a focus on brining in Arab tourists to Egypt. They make great guests because in general they tend to stay for longer periods of time and they tend to spend more during their stay.

There are about 203,000 hotel rooms in Egypt. The ministry is starting an initiative to support the hotels that have been suffering from low-occupancy rates and negligence, making sure they are able to comeback and compete.

There is strong interest from Egyptian businessmen and Arab businessmen to invest in the tourism industry in Egypt. These are great opportunities and the ministry is aiding them in that.