Egyptian Minister of Tourism Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour said on Saturday that a program to encourage domestic tourism will be launched by the end of the week, featuring cooperation between Egyptair, Al-Ahly Bank and the Ministry of Tourism. The program is to include offers to Egyptian citizens of a week in a touristic destination for a nominal price, paid by interest-free installments over six months. Abdel Nour announced the touristic program at a seminar titled “Our Egyptian Identity First and Foremost”, organized by the student union of Cairo University. He said that the Egyptian revolution had won Egypt the admiration of the whole world. “But this admiration is not reflected in tourism”, he said, pointing out that tourism will not return until security has been re-established. Abdel Nour said that the government had banned a large number of foreigners from working in the tourism industry, especially in the Red Sea and Sharm el-Sheikh governorates, where foreigners make up 30 percent of the labor force. He said that they would be replaced by Egyptian labor. The unrest that began on January 25 prompted embassies to issue travel warnings and many tour groups cancelled trips, throwing the industry in to crisis. The number of tourists visiting Egypt slumped by about 60 percent in March compared to the previous year, according to the Cairo-based Government Statistics Agency. Tourist spending fell to US$352 million from US$1 billion, it said. Translated from the Arabic Edition
