Minister of Tourism tells Rehab Saad about his plans for the industry became minister of tourism in December 2005, after a stint as first assistant to his predecessor in the post. He has also served on the board of the General Authority for Investment and on the Economic Committee of the National Democratic Party. He has more than 25 years of experience of the sector through the Garana Company for Tourism. Following are excerpts from the interview conducted in his office: How will the recent decisions to change the price structure of domestic flights and impose new customs declarations impact on tourism? Let me deal with the custom declaration first because there has been a lot of talk about it. We've been considering the new rules since August 2006 and the problem, I think, was the way they were implemented -- practically overnight -- rather than in the rules themselves. In Europe, the United States, all over the world, travellers are required to declare that they are carrying cash above a certain sum, and I don't see why it should be a problem for Egypt to expect people to fill in a form declaring they are carrying in excess of $10,000, or more than LE5,000. The complaints had more to do with the way the new system was implemented. We have now agreed procedures with the Ministry of Finance. It is a simple declaration. If you have more than the specified amounts you have to fill in a form, that's all. If you don't fill in the form, and it is found that you are carrying more than the amounts stated the money will be confiscated. Egypt has no restrictions on the sums of money people enter the country with as long as it is declared. As for the other customs regulations on the form, they have been in place for years though they have not always been applied. But what about requiring travellers to declare the number and content of their bags? Every airport in the world is zoned into declare and nothing to declare areas. Now we expect people to make those declarations on a form, which is simply a matter of regulation and as such is unlikely to impact on tourist numbers coming to Egypt. The rules have been set to facilitate the processing of passengers, though perhaps they were not presented in the best possible way. As far as domestic air fares are concerned, once EgyptAir decided to take online bookings it became untenable to maintain the old system of differentiated pricing for foreigners, foreigners with residency, and Egyptians. With online booking, IDs cannot be checked and so there had to be greater parity in pricing. In effect, prices for Egyptians have been increased and those for foreigners decreased. The largest increases have been restricted to business class, leaving business travellers the option of paying the premium rate for the service or else travelling economy. There are, now, a larger number of price bands between the highest and lowest rates. But won't this affect internal tourism? It could, of course. Which is why I believe it's important for more than one operator to be offering domestic flights, to allow for greater competition over price. What about the Higher Council of Tourism? Why wasn't it consulted? Why didn't it meet to discuss the changes? The Higher Council of Tourism convenes only when there are major problems that need to be addressed... if we want to call a meeting there must be specific issues that cannot be dealt with in any other way. Oddly enough, today I decided that I would call on the council to meet and currently we are working on the agenda. The World Health Organisation has reported that Egypt could be subjected to quarantine measures should it fail to contain the spread of Avian Flu. Do you have contingency plans should quarantines be imposed? Of course we have a plan... to deal with a possible epidemic but it is not my job to talk about it. There is a growing feeling that cultural tourism is being ignored in Egypt in favour of leisure tourism. Luxor and Aswan are no longer promoted and consequently receive fewer visitors. Is this an official policy? It's not entirely true that cultural tourism is being relegated. The fact is, though, that cultural tourism is not a mass business. There will always be a conflict between mass tourism and protecting your heritage. This year Luxor and Aswan have experienced the kind of overbooking last seen in 1997 and Nile cruise occupancy rates are up 12 per cent on last year. But the number of cultural tourists is always going to be limited. Today they represent 20 per cent of the total of nine million visitors to Egypt, and as the numbers of visitors increase so the proportion will drop, probably to five or six per cent. We have to preserve our sites... and we have to keep them for future generations. Last year Nile cruises faced many problems. Boats ran aground, some got stuck in the Esna Lock, and there were accidents like fires. What can be done to prevent such occurrences? The situation remains more or less constant. What has changed is the media coverage of these incidents. There are 282 boats going up and down the Nile. Ministries of tourism and irrigation cooperate closely. We are regularly informed about the level of the Nile. It has been low for some time and boats do run aground but this is due to human error. Taking the number of boats into account, and the fact that they run twice a week, there are 564 cruises operating in any seven- day period. How many boats have run aground? Ten, twelve. It is simply human error. As for fires, you need to look at what really happens. There was a recent newspaper report about a fire on a boat that ended by praising God that 136 tourists had been saved. What really happened was that there was a problem in the boat's kitchen with a deep fat fryer. It took a couple of minutes to deal with, though you wouldn't know that reading the papers. The way the media reports things is important. It should try to be more accurate because inaccurate reporting can harm the industry needlessly. Since 1992 boats have been subject to strict safety regimes. They are built to the highest international standards and equipped with smoke detectors and fire fighting systems. Last year there was a drop in some traditional markets, the Italian and French for instance. What are the reasons behind this drop and why are you now targeting new markets such as the Indian and Chinese? The Italian market was badly affected by the 2004 Taba incident. There was a number of Italian victims and it received a lot of coverage in the Italian media. That was reflected in much lower tourist numbers. The fall continued following other incidents in Sinai. Now the figures are beginning to stabilise at the 2004 level. But it is a matter of signs and roundabouts. Yes, we had a drop in the number of Italian tourists yet at the same time there was a marked increase in the number of British visitors. The falling number of French tourists was not an exclusively Egyptian problem, but more international, a result of the concerns felt by the French public over the safety of planes. Now Egypt's civil aviation complies with AIOZA regulations and we are witnessing a recovery in the French market. There is, too, a factor many people are loath to admit, that travel is subject to the whims of fashion. One year everybody seems to decide to go to a specific destination and other places don't get a look in. The European market represents 70 per cent of the total business coming to Egypt. In approaching new markets, then, it is not that they are more important than existing ones; rather, all markets are important. And new markets cannot be opened up overnight. It is a long-term project. By 2030 there will be 150 million travellers from India and China, and we have to be in there now if we are to secure a piece of the cake. Which is not to say that Europe is being neglected. I believe we could still double the number of visitors we receive from Europe but it will take time. There's a lot of things that have to be done. Egypt attracted a number of international conferences in the early 1990s, including the UN International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the UN Anti-Crime Convention. More recently there has been little success in attracting such business. Why is this the case? There are very few clients when it comes to major international conferences and a great many countries competing for their business. We have certainly lost ground in the conference sector though we have plans to completely renovate the Cairo International Conference Centre (CICC). We are going to build a new hotel, a deluxe property next to the CICC and we are actively promoting Egypt as a conference destination. We face problems with conference logistics, customs regulations, getting items in and out of the country, and exhibitors will naturally go to places that offer easier accessibility. It is an uphill struggle seeking to regain customers you have lost. You need to revise your approaches, develop a different way of marketing and a different way of motivating people to come and this is what we are trying to do. Success, though, depends on cooperation across the board. Without everyone pulling in the same direction nothing will be achieved. We cannot do it alone. What is your priority for 2007? Training. If Egypt is to continue sustaining tourism growth then we will have to invest in human resources. We have to invest in training and in upgrading existing skills. They are not bad but we need to upgrade to international standards. We need to offer visitors services, provide them with things on which they want to spend. We need to develop a smiling culture, a service culture. The tourist industry feeds into 70 other industries. A million new tourists create 200,000 new jobs. This is how people should look at it.
