Cairo hotels occupancy dropped by 11 percent, affected by the violence at Maspero on Sunday, said Osama al-Ashry, undersecretary of the Tourism Ministry. He said Cairo hotels were the most affected by the events, followed by Luxor and Aswan. Ashry added that Tourism Minister Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour demanded a detailed report of daily hotel occupancy rates following Sunday's incidents. He also added that the ministry's hotels sector is currently monitoring reservation cancellations. Only two companies have canceled their hotel reservations, and the trend has not grown, Ashry noted. Ashry said that Sinai and Red Sea hotels were less impacted than those in Cairo. He added that hotel occupancy in Taba stands at 10 percent, with 58 percent in Sharm el-Sheikh and 60 percent in Hurghada, which are much lower than the rates during the same period last year. He also revealed that the ministry is monitoring the effect on tourism from Germany, Spain and Russia. Nagy Erian, a hotels industry investor, said the Maspero incidents have dealt a sharp blow to the industry. He revealed that some Italian companies intend to remove Cairo, Luxor and Aswan from lists of their winter destinations. Erian said European markets are watchful of the security situation in Egypt, and are waiting to see who will assume power in the country before deciding how to treat Egypt as a tourist destination. Hotels cannot reduce their prices at present, he said. Translated from the Arabic Edition
