The Ministry of Tourism is planning to launch a promotional campaign in the Netherlands and Belgium by the end of October, in cooperation with JWT. In a statement, sources told Daily News Egypt that Al-Ahram Beverages will pay for the travel expenses of six managers at global hotels that manage assets in Egypt, who will be chosen by the Egyptian General Authority for Tourism Promotion. The sources added that JWT will manage the training process for the hotel managers, and will communicate with the media in Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as coordinate with Hill & Knowlton to change the perceptions of Egypt. The sources said that the campaign will mark a new beginning for the partnership between the state and the private sector in promotional operations and the utilisation of Al-Ahram Beverages' relationships in the Netherlands and Belgium. The Tourism Ministry plans to launch another promotional campaign in six cities in the US and five others in Latin America in the final quarter of this year with the help of former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass. The Latin American cities the Tourism Ministry plans to promote Egyptian products in include Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil, Buenos Aires in Argentina and the Colombian capital of Bogota. Sources said that the promotional campaign will visit these cities based on studies related to the increase of national income rates in these countries over the recent period. Last week, Daily News Egypt revealed that Hill & Knowlton had sent recommendations to the Tourism Ministry regarding dealing with the Mexican crisis, following the accidental deaths of eight Mexican nationals in the Bahariya Oasis. The recommendations included that "the Ministry of Tourism has to coordinate with all the different parties in the sector and the other ministries, and to announce the investigations of the accident in a conference to which all the international media, especially from Europe and Latin America, are invited". A Tourism Ministry official said JWT intends to proceed with the promotional campaign's launch date at the beginning of October as scheduled. He added that the parliamentary elections will not affect the campaign's launch date, which will begin from Egypt. JWT won the tender for the promotion plan announced by the Ministry of Tourism, which stipulates that the company will promote Egypt for three years using $22m annually, of which the company will obtain 3%-4%. Elhamy El-Zayat, Chairman of the Egyptian Federation of Chambers of Tourism, said the current period requires dealing with the crisis in a professional manner involving all ministries, rather than leaving the Tourism Ministry to deal with the situation alone. "The situation is very difficult, and the sector is close to death," El-Zayat said. El-Zayat further called for creative solution to address the ongoing tourism crisis, which is currently in its fifth year. He demanded the ordering of priorities to provide the sectors' workers with a vision, in cooperation with state bodies. Egypt's total tourism income during the first seven months of this year amounted to $3.6bn. El-Zayat warned that failure to handle the crisis will have negative results, whereby there are no revenues for the replacement and development operations of the hotels. This will, in turn, have a negative effect on the quality of services and Egypt's competitiveness in relation to other regional destinations. Source: Daily News Egypt
