Egypt, China discuss enhancing bilateral tourism relations

Only shortcoming which Egyptian-Chinese tourism relations face is absence of controls for price reductions, says former tourism adviser at ministry

On behalf of the Minister of Tourism, Rania Al-Mashat, the Tourism Adviser at the ministry of tourism, Soha Bahgat, discussed with a Chinese delegation headed by the deputy governor of Sichuan province, the aspects of the cooperation between the two countries in the tourism field. This came after the operation of a new direct flight between the two countries, and after receiving the first Chinese flights from Sichuan province to Cairo, which is expected to attract more Chinese tourists.
During the meeting, Bahgat stressed the importance of the Chinese market as one of the most promising tourism markets, assuring that the state is aiming to attract more Chinese tourists to Egypt.
In that context, Al-Mashat told Daily News Egypt (DNE) earlier that the ministry aims to diversify the revenue streams and increase the sector's resilience by attracting new markets. She explained that this could be achieved through increasing promotional efforts in new source markets, including Asia (particularly China).
She also revealed that during the period from January to October 2018, Asian tourists represented 5.62% of the total number of tourists who visited Egypt during that period.
For his part, the governor of China's Sichuan province expressed his country's aspiration for further cultural and touristic cooperation with Egypt.
Talking about the Egyptian-Chinese tourism relations, Sameh Saad, the former tourism adviser at the ministry of tourism, stated that there are no accurate statistics on Chinese tourism in Egypt, but he thinks that it doubled in the last period, giving the reason behind the increase as the exchange of visits between both presidents.
He continued that the only shortcoming which the Egyptian-Chinese tourism relations face is the absence of controls for price reductions for hotels, and tourism operators, etc.
Agreeing with Saad, the former Head of International Tourism at the Tourism Promotion Authority, Ahmed Shoukry, told DNE that the number of Chinese tourists is increasing, assuring that Egypt needs to increase the capacity of the direct flights between Egypt and China, as the Chinese market is a very beneficial market for Egypt.
He explained that Chinese tourism in Egypt is represented by two segments, the first one is purely tourism segment which comes to enjoy the cultural tourism in Egypt, while the second segment which visits Egypt with a business purpose.
Moreover, Saad noted that the average spending of the first type is much lower than the second one, thus he assured that Egypt should exploit the presence of the latter type as it aims to increase investments and the tourism revenues in Egypt, which will subsequently enhance the Egyptian economy.