Official sources in South Sinai's tourism sector said the hotels in the cities of Taba and Nuweiba risk being shut down because of Israel's strikes on the Gaza Strip and the global financial crisis. The sources also pointed out that in some hotels there is only one or two tourists. The sources added that a large number of hotels will be closed until the beginning of next spring, as the major tourist companies have been affected by the strikes and the global crisis and Israel has banned the 1948 Arabs from traveling to Sinai for tourism. The chairman of the Taba and Nuweiba investors association, Sami Salman, urged the prime minister and the financial minister to abolish visa fees and cut the sale tax in Taba (such tax can be up to $15 a person and $512 a car). The Egyptian Tourist Authority board of directors called for an immediate decree to help tourist facilities get out of the financial crisis, especially after the decreasing number of customers in restaurants on New Year's Day and at Christmas. The board expected tourist flows to drop by 60% in the near future and called on the state to preserve human resources and manpower by reconsidering the interest rates on the loans granted to tourist authorities and by reducing social insurances. Egyptian Tourist Authority Chairman Wagdy el-Kardani called for the Unemployment Fund role to be enhanced in order to help facilities keep their manpower. Mahmoud Rizk el-Gamal, member of the Authority board of directors, called for setting a program aimed at reducing expenses by 50%, attracting new tourists from the Arab region, and setting up an anti-catastrophe fund in cooperation with banks, businessmen and tourist facilities. Another board member, Hussein Abou Shaqra, said it is necessary to intensify publicity campaigns in tourist-exporting countries, support aviation, grant exemptions to remote areas, fix energy sale prices, and abolish the entry visa for tourist purposes in the near future in order to shore up tourism and face the global crisis.
