CAIRO- Egypt's ambitious plan for expanding its tourism industry, which absorbs 12.6 per cent of the nation's labour force, is moving ahead in accordance with President Hosni Mubarak's electoral programme, Tourism Minister Zoheir Garranah has said. “The programme, which runs until 2011, aims to increase the annual number of tourists visiting Egypt to 14 million, boost the number of tourist nights to 140 million, in order to generate an annual income of $10.5 billion, and create 1.2 million new jobs for the nation's youth,” Garranah told The Gazette in an exclusive interview. Under the programme, which President Mubarak announced in 2005, ahead of Egypt's first competitive presidential elections, new tourist investment zones along North Coast, as well as near the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) will be established, according to Garranah. “In the coming few weeks, 35,000 new rooms will be added to increase the hotel capacity from 215,000 rooms in 2009 to 250,000 rooms this year,” he stressed, adding that tourism sector was one of the biggest foreign currency earners, after the Suez Canal and remittances from abroad sent home by Egyptian expats. He said that the total labour force in the tourism sector hit 2.8 million, with total direct investments generating as much as 23 per cent of the country's needs of hard currency. Egypt's tourism has weathered the global economic meltdown, which started in September 2008, “thanks to close cooperation between the Ministry of Tourism and the private sector, as well as a carefully designed plan to deal with it”. “The Ministry of Tourism has drawn up a clear-cut strategy to cope with the crisis until 2011 and limit its negative effects on the tourism sector,” Garranah said. He added that the three-year strategy involved strengthening the relations between the Ministry as well as the travel companies (retailers) at the local and international levels; the launching of a global marketing campaign targeting the tourists directly; and the launching of a media campaign for promoting Egyptian tourism in foreign markets, as well as enhancing Egypt's presence in international tourism fairs, exhibitions, conferences and workshops. “The strategy, which has helped cushion the blow from the world downturn that has affected tourism, also involves offering facilitating charter flights to ensure that tourists will continue coming to Egypt during and after the crisis. The incentives included low landing, take-off and service fares at Taba, Mersa Allam, Aswan and Luxor airports.” Garranah said that the strategy had not all been plain sailing, but it proved to be a success last year. “In 2009, there was a drop of less than 2.3 per cent in the number of tourists who visited Egypt and a 2.1 per cent decrease in the annual revenue the country earns from tourism.” Garanah blamed other factors rather than the global economic downturn, such as the swine flu, for the slowdown in the tourism industry not only in Egypt, but also the world at large. “At the end of the day, I can safely say that Egyptian tourism has overcome the crisis with minimum losses, and it actually began to recover in September 2009.” Garranah points out that his ministerial staff have been trained to deal with any crisis or situation that may hit Egyptian tourism, which has proved to be an attractive sector for local and foreign capital owners. “If the tourism sector weren't strong, investors wouldn't be seeking to build more than 200,000 hotel rooms today,” he said, adding that an ambitious projectcalled ‘The White Mediterranean' was being implemented along Egypt's North Coast, where 60,000 hotel rooms are being built. “Within four or five years, the White Mediterranean will be competing internationally with similar resorts in Med Basin countries such as Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey, Greece, France, Italy and Spain,” he said, declining to give the project's total costs or the names and nationalities of the companies involved in implementing it. Garranah emphasises that Egypt has a wealth of ancient monuments along thousands of kilometres of mostly unspoilt coastline, while its hinterland offers pristine desert scenery, ancient monuments, sand dunes and mountains. “Egypt is still an appealing offbeat destination, even though I am selling a ‘faulty' product because tourists encounter some difficulties that make it hard for them to travel around with ease,” he said. This is why his Ministry has been busy raising the public's awareness about the importance of the tourism sector and its key role in national development and supporting the national economy. The Minister called on the local media to support the Ministry in its efforts to achieve this goal and educate Egyptians in how to make tourists feel at home. The traditionally hospitable Egyptians are an asset to the tourism sector, which is full of facilities that need to be maintained by skilled workers, in order to offer better services to tourists. According to Garranah, the Ministry of Tourism is concerned with ensuring that internationally approved quality standards are observed in all tourism facilities nationwide. “Therefore, the Ministry has launched a comprehensive training programme for its officials, so they can inspect these facilities and ensure that international quality standards are being applied.” Last week, Prime Minister AhmedNazif signed a ministerial decree ordering the establishing of the National Training Centre for Tourism Workers, which will be concerned with upgrading the skills of the tourism sector's labour force in terms of inspections.
