As Egypt's political situation stabilizes, Senior Editor Michelle Baran sat down with the country's tourism minister, Hisham Zazou, at his office in Cairo to discuss the tourism industry's plans for recovery.
Q: How badly was Egypt's tourism economy hit over the last three years?
A: Our worst year in the last three years was last year. If you compare the figures, we received 9.5 million [international travelers], down from 14.7 million, and the 9.5 million generated an income of $5.8 billion, down from $12.5 billion.
Q: How much was the tourism infrastructure impacted due to neglect over the past three years?
A: I think it had a negative effect for sure, although I'm relatively satisfied with the performance over the past three months when we started to have a comeback and a turnaround in the situation, particularly in the Red Sea area. I did not receive major complaints of service levels that had deteriorated, or people complaining that the quality of hotels has declined tremendously. So on the one hand, yes, I have to admit that the investment to refurbish or renovate that should have been taking place over the past three years was stopped, but now I believe the investors are thinking of spending again with the comeback of tourism.
Q: You recently laid out a plan to attract 25 million visitors by 2020. Can Egypt handle 25 million visitors?
A: Twenty-five million by 2022 ... 80% or more of this traffic will be in our leisure product, which is by the beaches, particularly the Red Sea area. Hopefully, very soon on our Mediterranean too. The coastline is not fully explored in that sense, and accordingly there is no pressure on our resources there for future development. We are trying to alleviate the pressures of additional numbers in some of the areas that are already under threat. So we're not speaking about archaeological or historical or cultural products of Egypt alone. We're speaking about new products like our desert safaris. We're speaking about our new upcoming goldmine in Egypt, particularly out of Europe, which is our Mediterranean coast.
Q: What are your plans for promoting tourism to Egypt again?
A: One part is putting more emphasis on public relations activities, because the image to many people around the world is that the destination is still unsafe to visit, and that's a fallacy. All our touristic areas are quite safe and sound.
Q: Has the new government set aside part of the budget for tourism promotion and development? How much?
A: Out of our resources that we already had accumulated through the years in Egyptian tourism -- although we had very bad years and the additional income dried up -- this year, we decided to have a budget of no less than $40 million for promotional activities. I hope it can reach $50 million or $60 million. And we will use these promotional budgets to attract more businesses and to generate more business for Egypt, particularly from new source markets like China and India. And to activate again our promotional activities in the U.S. market.
Q: Are you concerned about additional political clashes or terrorism incidents that could again be a setback for tourism?
A: Of course, the worry is always there, but the worry is getting more and more diminished. I believe the worry of having political turmoil or political upheaval is diminishing, and we're moving into a much more stable country and society.
Follow Michelle Baran on Twitter @mbtravelweekly.