1 - 7 February 2001
Issue No.519
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 February 2001 Issue No.519 |
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Waiting for the golden egg
At a meeting with members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Cairo last week, Minister of Tourism Mamdouh El-Beltagui announced that 5.5 million tourists visited Egypt last year. By the year 2005, he added, the intention is to raise that figure to 9.5 million annually.
Given that tourism industry leaders Spain and France attract more than 60 million people annually, the announced targets may not seem over ambitious. Yet the fact remains that tourism is a sector that has consistently been viewed as failing to maximise its potential, generating neither the employment opportunities nor the desperately needed hard currency revenue that it might.
No small part of the problem can be attributed to the fact that Egypt's tourism sector -- the entire infrastructure of hotels, cruise ships, restaurants, museums, transportation systems, agents etc -- operates in an open market yet continues to be subject to the restrictions imposed by a heavily centralised, top heavy bureaucratic administration that all too often lacks the overall vision and flexibility needed to adapt to the realities of the market, let alone direct future development.
A doubling of visitor numbers within four years is not going to happen out of the blue. The groups most likely to respond to targeting must be identified, and the requisite planning set into motion. And one aspect of the industry desperately in need of attention is to broaden the base of accommodation available. The predominance of luxury hotels and the scarcity of average priced accommodation offering a decent service must be rectified, and pricing strategies instituted that reflect the varying levels of demand over the course of the year.
Investment in the industry continues to suffer by being caught up in interminable inter-governmental wrangling. Entrepreneurs are inhibited and confused by conflicting signals given by the ministries of finance and tourism, and are then further demoralised by high levels of taxation. Nor is there any constructive cooperation between the industry and those training institutes charged with providing the requisite, qualified staff.
The absence of any overall strategy, and the subsequent growth of piecemeal and often conflicting development, has resulted in the squandering of incomparable natural resources. Instead of competing with the rivieras of Europe, stretches of Egypt's Mediterranean coast have been subjected to a kind of ribbon development that verges on vandalism, dominated by unattractive cement blocks that lack the proper infrastructure of transport, airports, hotels and recreation facilities.
Egypt's tourism sector suffers, too, from promotional shortcomings. At major international trade events the sector is represented almost solely by government bureaucrats who form the delegations entrusted with a task they are, with the best will in the world, barely capable of handling. The organisational and creative skills needed to successfully promote Egypt as a destination in the increasingly cut throat tourist industry tend to be most conspicuous by their absence.
Given the expressed aim to almost double tourist numbers within four years, would it not make sense for the Ministry of Tourism to reallocate some of its resources away from its antiquated apparatuses and direct the sums saved into retaining a reputable international public relations company to formulate the strategy most likely to pay dividends? Inroads are desperately needed in the international media, and the help of tourist operators abroad should be enlisted in promoting Egypt.
For 20 years now there has been talk of increasing the number of visitors coming to Egypt. Yet we have consistently failed to breathe new life into the sector, or to strengthen it in a manner that is capable of outweighing either political circumstances out of our control, or general economic conditions. Instead of working towards making tourism the hen that lays the golden egg, we have been content to leave it as something resembling a sitting duck. Tourism is not going to develop into a healthy, vibrant industry overnight. Projections will not be met simply by crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. The sitting duck needs more than a couple of prods in the right direction if it is ever to take wing.
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