CAIRO-Perhaps the towering minarets and frequent sight-seeing tours on this bustling street have offered visitors and passers-by a kind of comfort they only could explain. That is why these visitors keep coming here in their thousands to get as much of this comfort as they can. On al-Muezz Lideen Allah Street in the heart of of Islamic Cairo, people rub shoulders, race against each other to get space in front of the colourful lights that adorn every corner in the historic street and enjoy themselves to the full. They are drawn to this place by its strictly organised ambience, its many shops, and also its numerous tourist attractions that continue to promise memorable times for visitors. “This is the first time I come here,” said Abdullah Ibrahim, a 23-year-old Egyptian accountant who was taking photos outside a historic mosque on the street. “I'm really astonished at the more than wonderful Islamic atmosphere of the place and its decorations,” he told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. Whether Ibrahim knew it or not, al- Muezz Lideen Allah Street is one important item in a long list of sites on which the Egyptian Government pins big hopes to perk up this country's domestic tourism at this time of major economic slump. Strongly bitten by the international economic meltdown in ways that had their toll on the number of foreign tourists coming to it, the Government has turned to domestic and Arab tourism to keep the millions of tourism personnel employed. It wants to seize the holy fasting month of Ramadan as an occasion on which it can lure millions of Arabs to Egypt and encourage the locals to visit the Islamic tourist sites so as to push the national tourism wheel a little forward. “We've special plans to promote tourism during the fasting month,” said Amr el-Ezabi, the chairman of Egyptian Tourists Authority, a Staterun agency concerned with planning for tourism. “We seek to capitalise on the spirit of this great month by bringing Arab and Egyptian tourists to our country's Islamic attractions,” el- Ezabi added in statements to the press a few days ago. Called “Ramadan Egypt's Marquee”, the festival that goes with the plans of the agency to promote tourism during the fasting month includes several events, including a special celebration of Ramadan lanterns. The event seeks to make capital of Egyptians' very special knack for making the colourful traditional lanterns by functioning as a magnet for Arab and Egyptian tourists here. This is one of many things put forward in a list of Egyptian peculiarities local tourist experts have been calling for taking advantage to serve tourism for a long time now. The reality is that Egypt's Ramadan is colourfully unique. Cairo, the city that boasts hundreds of minarets attached to prayer houses, big and small, turns into one big mosque during Ramadan where the faithful conduct prayers and plead with God for mercy. The spiritual part of Ramadan always mixes with Egypt's very special version of Ramadan festivities in which religious songs (Tawashih), dances, and essences make an incomparable background for visitors and residents. Wherever one goes on the streets of this populous country, the smell of food coming out of houses hours before the breakfast offer passers-by a feast for their noses and their imagination. Here on al-Muezz Lideen Allah Street, Ibrahim and his friends marvelled at every street corner. They sat at a coffee shop, ordered hot drinks, and kept following with their eyes the hundreds of street visitors and shop owners who tried to lure everybody to the neatly ordered merchandise they sold. “This is a very wonderful setting,” Ibrahim said. “I really hope to come again,” he added. Egypt earned US$ 10 billion from tourism in 2009, according to the Tourism Ministry. This accounted for 11 per cent of Egypt's gross domestic product. In the first quarter of 2009, tourism revenues were down 13.2 per cent.
