The Canada Egypt Business Council “CEBC” hosted a special dinner and panel discussion at the Conrad Cairo Hotel in January, featuring keynote speaker H.E. Zoheir Garana, Egypt’s Minister of Tourism, as well as a number of prominent guest speakers from the Egyptian Tourism sector discussing the topic of “Tourism in the Shadow of the Global Financial Crisis”.
The event was prompted by the upheaval in global markets, aiming at highlighting the impact of the world economic financial crisis on Egypt’s Tourism Sector as one of the most vital resources of Egypt’s national income.
Mr. Motaz Raslan, Chairman of CEBC, delivered his opening remarks by briefly discussing the general state of the tourism industry in Egypt, highlighting this sector’s influence over infrastructure development, mentioning the fact that it is a vital source for job creation and stating that if Egypt is the gift of the Nile, as long been stated by the Greek historian Herodotus, then tourism is God’s gift to Egypt as well.
Tourism industry is a prime source of foreign currency, he said, pointing out that tourism contributes a vital share in Egypt’s revenues and is a main engine for gearing the Egyptian economic growth rates. He reviewed the growth of tourism in Egypt during the past three years, noting that growth rates have reached 23 percent annually, with a remarkable improvement since 1995. “Thanks to Egypt’s huge potentials from sunny climate, spectacular nature, exotic location on both the Red and the Mediterranean Seas besides the great legacy of Pharaonic, Coptic and Islamic monuments”, added the CEBC Chairman.
Mr. Raslan then discussed the fact that the tourism industry has suffered previous impediments as the terrorist militant attacks on tourist targets in 1997 in Luxor as well as the impact of war in the region surrounding Egypt as the first and the second Gulf War, and that the sector has soon recovered and kept on growing. However, he added, the industry is currently being challenged for the first time by major economic confront, which is the global economic downturn.
“The global economic recession has influenced several sectors of the domestic economy, questionably the most distresses sectors are the ones that generate income in foreign currencies, led by the tourism sector.” Accordingly, he noted, the Central Bank’s recent statistics have revealed a drop in the growth rates of tourism by 19% during the last three months and a fell in new bookings by 25% due to global trends of cutting travel and tourism as a reaction towards such crises.
Mr. Raslan went on to highlight the government’s recent plans to support all production sectors for overcoming the impeding effect of this crisis by reducing customs on production requirements, export subsidies and other decisions and actions. However, he outlined that the prime sector that should be largely sustained is the tourism being a chief resource for the state’s revenues. Consequently as an initiative of The Canada Egypt Business Council for further highlighting the dimensions of the economic turmoil, the Council decided to organize a series of upcoming functions discussing the implications of the crisis on major sectors. The foremost sector, he concluded is tourism as the most important export service of Egypt.
Mr. Raslan then gave the floor to H.E. Ferry de Kerckhove, Canada’s Ambassador to Egypt who started his speech by explaining the variety of tourism attractions that Egypt enjoys from antiquities and pharaonic sites to much more diverse beach destinations including the charming Sharm El Sheikh alongside Egypt’s unique cultural heritage and cemetery sites as Beni Hassan. “The diversity in Tourism sites gives Egypt an edge over many other countries; however more efforts should be exerted to promote modern Egypt as well”, said the Ambassador.
Ambassador de Kerckhove also briefly discussed the probable impact of the recent financial crisis on international markets, as well as Egypt’s domestic sectors asserting that the tourism sector is more resilient than any other sector to the crisis impacts. He delved into the likely of joint integrated horizontal and vertical efforts among Egypt’s tourism government officials along with private entities through cost containment endorsing packages that should not be done on the expense of the quality.
Central to this endeavor, the Canadian Ambassador finally added that maintaining the quality of service is not the only difficulty facing tourism in Egypt. In fact, the sector is facing a challenging time due to the worldwide economic downturn. Nevertheless, he asserted that despite turbulent economic times, promoting tourism could bring countless benefits through cooperation between countries rather than competition.
H.E. Zoheir Garana, Egypt’s Minister of Tourism then took the podium to underscore the significance of the Egyptian tourism sector by portraying the fact that the Egyptian tourism currently represents 11.3% of GDP, 40% of Egypt’s non-commodity exports, 19.3 % of the foreign income, 12.6% of the workforce, 4% of the investment, as well as 13% of the investments in services.
The Minister pointed out that Egypt is ranked 23 among the 50 best tourist destination in the world and the first place in northern Africa, representing 27% of the share of the Middle East and 1% of global tourism revenues, adding that last year, Egypt has represented 3.5% of the total world tourism.
He further explained that according to the electoral program of President Mubarak, the number of tourists planned was to reach 14 million by 2011, with a real income of $10.5 billion and $40 million tourist nights as well as 240 thousand rooms. By the end of 2008, 12.8 million tourists visited Egypt, compared to 11.1 million in 2007, with a growth rate of 15.3% and 129.2 million nights, with a growth rate of 15.9%. The revenues were geared to 10.98 billion versus 9.8 billion in 2007 and a number of 211 thousand rooms, compared to 198 rooms in 2007, with a growth rate of 11%.
Minister Garana stated that Egypt has started to reap the outcomes of the crisis that started globally in May 2008. He pointed out that the Ministry is mounting research on the mechanisms to surmount the current situation in order to reduce the magnitude of the recent occupancy drop rates that no expert, not even from the World Tourism Organization, can forecast its enormity.

The Tourism Minister further detailed that a decline in new bookings has occurred during the month of January with a number of tourists of only 13 thousand, and a rate 7.2%. He added that despite claims of a further drop, conversely, that is in some regions having other areas where higher occupancy rates, offset losses in these regions and finally arrive at a positive outcome of desire, which is a limited decline in tourism in Egypt.
Optimistically Minister Garana sees that Egypt had past experiences in dealing with the crises over the course of history, which gives it an edge in dealing with this crisis especially that it is of a global nature and not specific to Egypt.
The Tourism Minister acknowledged the ministry’s present role in implementing several techniques to deal with the current situation by intensifying the tourism promotional campaigns in partnership with main tourism companies in major markets. He further explained that the key purpose of these campaigns is to review and deal with the crises negatives to turn the tide in the tourist sector for lifting the current level of quality and intensifying employment and training skills, leading to a stronger and more competent Egyptian tourism industry.
He also asserted that the priority would be for the nearby tourist attractions, having the recent tourists’ decisions as the guide for adjusting the tourism revitalization plans.
Minister Garana finally added that the fruitful cooperation between the ministry and the private sector in cooperation with the Federation of Egyptian Chambers has had the most abundant impact in achieving positive results accomplished by Egyptian tourism during the last year. He went on praising the tourist media and information on the effort, which has contributed in showing and highlighting the progress attained in producing a more outstanding tourist industry in Egypt.
Following his speech, Minister Garana participated in a panel discussion moderated by Mr. Galal Dowidar, Secretary of the Supreme Council for Press who discussed the apparent need for highlighting the consequences of tourism through coordinated efforts between the ministry along with the private sector on how to tackle the impact of the worldwide crisis on the this promising sectors.
Other guest speakers on the panel were invited to speak and illustrate their own perspectives on the current crisis. Mr. Elhamy El Zayat, Chairman & CEO “Emeco Travel” explained the crisis effect on the tourism international and domestic market. He pointed out that the current crisis, which is different than any other challenge previously faced by the industry, enormously needs the endorsement of incentive tourism for further promoting more tourists to Egypt in the current stage to prevail the recent turbulent caused by the economic recession in trade and investments worldwide.
Mr. Mounir Kamal, Managing Director, Egypt & Middle East, “Thomas Cook Overseas”, discussed his perception on how these events would affect Egypt’s tourism over the next 10 years. Among other points, he mentioned that the promising factors in surmounting this recession and improving the flow of tourism could be the last minute booking, close destination, as well as price incentives. To confront the current situation, he suggested that Egypt must take a number of steps, including increasing efforts to attract more foreign tourists to Egypt by providing more charter airlines provided by the continued support of the Ministry of Tourism along with the Ministry of Aviation.
Mr. Hossam El Shaer, Chairman & CEO, “Blue Sky Group”, followed Mr. Kamal’s speech by placing the current impact of the international financial crisis on Egypt’s Tourism in a historical context, while also discussing a number of facets of the current crisis. He noted that worldwide tourism markets are interrelated, and the need for a global coordinated effort to change our current campaigns to propagate awareness of how to treat tourists. El Shaer also delved into changes in the priorities as well as the psychology of the tourists on which the current tourism campaigns should address by promoting more package deals. “However Egypt, I think, will still be attractive, despite the current situation”, he said.
El Shaer was followed by, Mr. Amr Badr, Managing Director of “Abercrombie and Kent Egypt”, who began by shedding the light on the roots of the current crisis. He attributed the market turmoil partially to the current fall in Russian tourists to Egypt as well as the German, the British and the Italian that represent the next three largest markets to Egyptian tourism respectively. He also pointed out the impact of e-marking on further promoting and marketing our tourism industry, besides offering competitive prices on week-end packages, as well as short end flights.
The floor was then opened to questions raised from the audience, covering topics such as sustainable tourism development project, revamping, and expanding tourism investment in Egypt, ways of propagating awareness on how to treat the tourists, as well as maintaining the quality of tourism service.