Owners of hotels, companies and tourist resorts started to follow a new policy in dismissing workers. They follow the "dropper" policy, namely they fire 3 or 4 workers on a daily basis, so they can dismiss 100 workers per month at least. They said that they are obliged to do this and not collective layoffs to avoid strikes and complaints.
Mahmoud Gaballah, Board Member of the Chamber of Tourist Facilities, said he followed this policy and managed to fire more than 200 workers out of 4,000. He added that he had to pay salaries up to LE 750,000 while the total gains did not reach 50% of that figure due to weak demand resulting from the global economic crisis. He said that he would reduce the number of workers by 50% if the current recession continued. During Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's meeting with the leaders of the tourism sector and with Minister of Tourism Zuheir Garana last week, the board chairman of Travco Group Hamid al-Shiti told Nazif that he would have to dismiss 1000 workers out of 11,000 if the government did not support him, especially as his hotel occupancy fell by over 40%. In Sharm el-Sheikh, Accor fired more than 60 workers of Sofitel and Novotel within two weeks. For his part, Chairman of the Chamber of Hotels in South Sinai Ahmed Balba cast doubts on the current occupancy rates, adding that the Ministry of Tourism plays the role of the doctor who reassures his patients although their conditions are critical. He added that there have been great reductions in the prices, not only in Egypt, but also all over the world. The losses in the tourism sector are heavy and the decline in the price of the euro "added insult to injury" because the hotel facilities that deal with the European market declined by 20%, in addition to the drop in prices resulting from the world economic crisis.
