Tourism, one of the major revenue earners for the Egyptian economy, will be given new directions by the ministry, Egyptian Minister of Tourism Zoheir Garahna said in Abu Dhabi recently. For a start, he said the driving habits in general has to see a new angle and for this an Austrian institute has been engaged to instill a sense of discipline and decorum to reduce the accident rate. “Human element is behind 90 per cent of the traffic accidents in Egypt,” he said at a press conference. As further steps, the tourism ministry in Egypt is carrying out programmes to train 100,000 people on how to deal politely with tourists and help them acquire working knowledge of English. He said the ministry allocates as much as 400 million Egyptian pounds per annum to revamp and develop the Egyptian governorates to be ready to receive tourists. The ministry will provide nearly 400,000 new job opportunities in 2010 since it accounts for 13 per cent of the Egyptian national income, Garana said, adding that about 8.2 million people have jobs in the tourism sector which is about 12 per cent of the total labour force in Egypt. The volcanic ash in Europe had incurred a loss of 200 million Egyptian pounds to the home tourism sector, he said. Tamir Mansour, Ambassador of Egypt to the UAE, and Amr El Ezaby, Chairman of the Egyptian Tourist Authority, were also present. Ezaby said Egypt is to launch a drive by the last week of this month to promote tourism across the globe to the northern coast of Egypt and Alexandria after the Arab League had named the latter as the Capital of Arab Tourism in 2010.
