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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 March 2000 Issue No. 473 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 March 2000 Issue No. 473
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles The big sell
By Rehab SaadThere is no end to the call for expansion in the tourist industry -- a need created by steadily rising tourist numbers and ambitious ministries and tour agencies who all see the potential wealth the tourist dollar can bring. But according to Ahmed El-Maghraby, head of the Egyptian Federation of Tourist Chambers and board chairman of Accor Company in Egypt, growth doesn't just mean more tourists; it means a better tourist product.
"When a tourist buys a holiday, he does not only buy accommodation, he buys the whole country," El-Maghraby told Al-Ahram Weekly. "If a hotel is up to standard, but the streets around it are not, [or] when he finds that his taxi has no fixed fare, ... [the tourist] feels that he has gotten less than what he paid for. A holiday means an experience, and that means the whole country."
The answer lies in coordination between ministries and organisations related to the travel industry. El-Maghraby laments that each authority is working as "an isolated island" that only considers its own interests; but things are looking up with recently announced plans for reorganisation in the Supreme Council of Tourism. The council will now include representatives from the ministries of tourism, irrigation, transportation, local government, planning and environment; as well as the heads of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, EgyptAir, Cairo Airport, civil aviation, customs and passport authorities.
"These organisations are all related to the tourism business, to a greater or lesser degree," El-Maghraby said, adding that coordination between them will solve a number of major problems. He praised new aviation decisions that will allow foreign airlines to fly directly to tourist destinations within Egypt and Egyptian private airlines to organise domestic trips -- a market once dominated solely by EgyptAir.
About five million tourists visit Egypt each year, drawn by ancient sites and the Red Sea coast. Rising prices may raise some grumbling on the European continent, but Egypt's tourist numbers still continue to increase
Today Egypt receives about five million tourists. Reports issued by the World Tourist Organisation (WTO) show that Egypt is among the top 33 countries in the world as far as the number of tourists is concerned, but detractors claim that Egypt is getting less than its fair share of tourists compared to neighbouring countries with fewer attractions. El-Maghraby disagrees, noting that there are countries that receive about 10 million tourists annually, but their tourist revenue is almost the same as Egypt's.
Official figures can be deceptive. Countries like France and Spain are recorded as getting some 60 million tourists -- a fact dismissed by El-Maghraby as an empty claim. "They are another story," El-Maghraby says. "They are easily accessible by road. You will find, for example, Swiss going to France by car to do their shopping; if a man and his wife travel over the border five times a week to do their shopping, they are counted by the French authorities as 10 tourists."
The international traveller is a fickle customer, and catering to a large cross-section of this community is difficult for all countries who depend heavily on tourist income. A country like Egypt, despite the timeless draw of Pharaonic monuments and antiquities, has suffered from setbacks caused by political or internal conflicts. Tourist numbers dropped drastically in 1997 after the Luxor massacre.
An incident of this scale, however isolated, can virtually ground tourist operations to a halt. Hotels and travel agencies quickly realised that the best way to promote Egypt as a safe destination was by the inimitable "word of mouth" phenomenon; prices were lowered considerably to encourage travellers.
"We could spend ten years promoting Egypt as a safe destination and nobody would listen," says El-Maghraby. "But if one tourist returns home to tell his friends that Egypt was safe and the prices low, there is no keeping them away."
Low prices may be popular with tourists, but now that tourist numbers are back at a healthy influx, there are complaints from within Egypt that prices of the Egyptian product are too low. Meanwhile, there are complaints from abroad that Egypt has become greedy in its pricing. "We are neither this nor that," says El-Maghraby. "Prices fluctuate in relation to supply and demand, as well as with the mechanisms of the market."
In fact, the dollar exchange rate increased by 15 per cent in 1999 in comparison with other European currencies. "At the same time, after regaining most of the tourist market, Egypt increased its prices by 15 per cent," says El-Maghraby. "Since most travellers to Egypt are Europeans, they found that our prices had increased by 30 per cent all of a sudden."
Despite this increase, the demand on the Egyptian product has not flagged. In fact, Egypt is succeeding in attracting a wider variety of tourists -- most notably, its own citizens. As the average incomes of Egyptians increase, domestic tourism -- "one of the most important sectors of tourism anywhere in the world," says El-Maghraby -- has started to flourish. Egyptians traditionally take a single, long holiday in the summer, rather than breaking up their vacation time into smaller trips throughout the year.
"I think it is high time that [Egyptians] think about keeping a part of their holiday quota for another season," El-Maghraby advises. "Once this happens, travel agencies will be able to sell holidays to Egyptians year round."
Egypt's success with the newly empowered budget traveller has called up the somewhat jaded argument about the "quality" of tourists. Some argue that in the past, Egypt attracted more rich, jacket-and-tie tourists and that this is the quality of tourist Egypt should be targeting. The suggestion is that the T-shirt-and-blue-jeans tourists who arrive on charter flights do not spend a lot of money, but El-Maghraby denounces such reasoning as "absurd."
"It is the style of life that has changed," he says. "We cannot judge travellers by their appearance. We have to provide quality services whatever the tourist." In fact, the number of so-called quality tourists is quite low compared to ordinary tourists.
"Who said that less well-off people have no right to travel?" El-Maghraby says. "[If] I have a product at a specific price, whoever can pay this price is welcome to enjoy it."
