Cairo - The participants in an international conference yesterday lauded the Government's strenuous efforts to revive the local tourism industry, a major source of foreign currency for Egypt. The conference chairman, Taleb el-Refai, praised the Government's plan to restore Egypt to its rightful place on the world's tourism map through the help of the local and international media. Addressing the final session of the Second UNWTO International Conference on Tourism and the Media in the Red Sea resort town of Marsa Alam, el-Refai said that the gathering was an excellent opportunity for the participants to get a first-hand idea about the real situation for tourism in Egypt in the wake of the January 25 Revolution. The number of tourists visiting Egypt rose 32 per cent in the first quarter of 2012, compared with the same period in 2011, when the sector plunged because of Egypt's revolution, officials said yesterday. A total of 2.5 million tourists arrived in Egypt between January and March, compared with 1.89 million a year earlier, the Egyptian Tourist Authority said. The biggest rise was in people coming from other Arab countries, whose numbers increased by 63 per cent. "From what the participants have seen, there are encouraging signs that the Egyptian tourism sector will regain its strength and assume its rightful place on the world map once more," el-Refai, the Chairman of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), told the conference. To boost tourism's economic role, the Egyptian Government acknowledges that it must rely on the local and international media to attract more visitors, he stressed. "Such reliance could help increase the revenues for Egypt and its people," el-Refai explained. Tourism in Egypt, home to wonderful Pharaonic sites and Red Sea resorts with pristine beaches and coral reefs that attract divers from around the world, is a key money earner and source of foreign currency, along with Suez Canal earnings. El-Refai said that the media have a crucial role to play in promoting Egypt on the global tourism map, thus helping to boost the local economy. “The relationship between tourism and the media is a vital, complex one,” he told the final session of the two-day conference, which was attended by 300 international and local media representatives. “Tourism depends heavily on media reporting, because the vast majority of travel decisions are made by people who have never seen the destination first hand for themselves,” he added. When there is bad news or a crisis, the impact on tourism can be devastating. El-Refai said that tourists are scared away from destinations caught in the glare of round-the-clock disaster coverage, causing communities dependent on tourism to lose their source of livelihood. Preparing for a crisis and improving relations with the media are two objectives that should be achieved, he added, calling on the media to avoid over-sensationalising disasters and their effects.
