CAIRO: Investments coming in from Egypt's tourism industry are still booming despite the recent bombings in Dahab, according to Minister of Tourism Zoheir Garrana. In an interview on Tuesday with Reuter's news agency, Garrana said that investors are still vying for investment opportunities in large-scale tourism projects in the country. While the minister conceded that the blasts initially sparked security concerns among foreign investors, they have not marred the interest of investors, as evident by the fact that they have not pulled out of any of the projects currently being developed. In fact, most of the mega tourism projects are progressing as planned, he added. According to Garrana, the Dubai-based Emaar Properties, one of the foreign firms that have invested in the country's tourism industry, which revealed plans for a $4 billion development in Cairo last year, is still active in Egypt despite the recent attacks in Dahab. Definitely some of the events that took place in the past slowed down our pace of development, Garrana was quoted as saying. But now it is business as usual and nobody has stopped. On the contrary, we have very strong demand for (investing in) mega-projects, either from the Gulf area or Europe. While hotel and tourist bookings in Egypt witnessed a drop of 1-2 percent since the Dahab blasts, indicating that Egypt's tourism industry will face a backlash in the short term, the minister is unconcerned. What is encouraging is that the rate of forward bookings (bookings made in advance for a season) is maintaining its growth. Life has to go on and it s business as usual. We have very good indications for the summer, he was quoted as saying. Tania El Chiaty, E-Commerce manager for Iberotel & Sol Y Mar for Hotels & Resorts in Egypt, confirms the minister's assertion. "The average percentage of cancellations for May, June, July and August, the summer months, has only fallen slightly since the Dahab incidents, she says. "But we expected this. Cancellations are expected in light of recent events. According to El Chiaty, Iberotel & Sol Y Mar have witnessed cancellations in Dahab (10 percent), Sharm El Sheikh (4 percent) and Hurghada (3 percent, at their Makadi resort). "These are paltry figures, adds El Chiaty. "In fact, the numbers can be perceived as a good sign, as they show that tourists are still in fact interested in coming to Egypt and that the bombings haven't deterred them. Most of the cancellations that were made were by tourists from European nations, such as Italy and Germany, according to El Chiaty. On an overall scale, tourism is still booming and tourists are still making reservations, albeit in smaller numbers for this time of the year, she states. According to official figures obtained by the Reuters report, 8.6 million tourists visited Egypt in 2005, despite last year's attacks in Taba and Sharm El-Sheikh. That figure is up 6 percent from the 8.1 million tourists who visited Egypt in 2004. Tourists also pumped $6.5 billion into the economy last year, up from $6 billion in 2004. To my surprise, we still maintained growth, Garrana was quoted as saying in regard to the figures. Not the figure we wanted, which was 12 percent, but we still maintained growth, so it didn t have that negative an impact on the economy, and tourism is the number one contributor to GDP. According to Garrana, the Dahab bombings did not shake the tourism industry to the extent that many expected, especially when compared to the industry in the aftermath of the Taba and Sharm El-Sheikh attacks. In fact, the average occupancy rate for hotels in the Sinai Peninsula area was 81.3 percent in late April (a week after the Dahab attack), Garrana was quoted as saying. While that figure is down from more than 95 percent in the week before the blasts, it is still in line with the 82 percent seen in the year-ago period. If you want to compare this incident (Dahab) with the last incident that took place in Sharm, definitely it has had a very mild effect, Garrana was quoted as saying. The minister still has high hopes for the industry, despite the increasing attacks on tourist hot spots during their peak seasons. On Monday, he was quoted as saying that the ministry hopes to attract an extra one million visitors in 2006. We have a target to attract an extra one million tourists a year. I think we are going to achieve this figure in spite of what happened, he told Reuters. El Chiaty, however, does not share the minister's optimism. In El Chiaty's eyes, the attacks have less to do with harming foreigners and more to do with getting the attention of the Egyptian government. "The past incidents have been targeted to Egyptians and not tourists, a fact which should be announced to foreign countries, she says. While certainly not comforting, El Chiaty believes that the best way to thwart such attacks on nationals is to do it the same way we combat attacks on tourists; rigid security measures, which, incidentally, she does not believe Egypt has excelled at. "Egypt has always been a volatile country, she says. "While these incidents are not new to Egypt, the country should consider implementing greater security regulations than are currently in place and actually adhere to them. As for the estimated one million addition tourists, El Chiaty is not convinced. "I doubt we will be able to reach the one million targeted. But hopefully we'll get 500,000 (tourists), she says.
