Tourism traffic to Egypt increased 51 percent during the first quarter of 2017 opposed to the same period of 2016, statistics released by the Egyptian Tourism Ministry stated.
According to the statistics, around 1.737 million tourists visited Egypt during the first three months of 2017 opposed to 1.150 tourists a year earlier. Germany led tourism traffic to Egypt in January-March 2017(226,700 tourists) followed by Ukraine (226,500 tourists), Saudi Arabia (151,000 tourists), China (103,000 tourists), and Britain (75,000 tourists).
The statistics clarified that tourism traffic from European states witnessed a leap of 60.3 percent while traffic from America, Mexico, and Canada jumped by 20 percent. In addition, tourism traffic from South America hiked 74 percent, while Arab and Asian tourists’ figures leaped 38.7 percent and 64 percent respectively.
Speaking to the MEO, tourism experts called for keeping to state’s plan of promoting tourism especially through adoption of the unconventional promotion techniques; whether via internet or through presence in tourism marketing fairs held in European countries and the U.S. Experts referred to the importance of reassessing the management style and logistic services at touristic sites.
Moataz El Said – a tourism expert- stated that efforts exerted over the last period to boost rates of tourism attraction started yielding results, accordingly, it is important to proceed with the tourism promotion marketing plan. He clarified the importance of modifying the organisational structure of tourism promotion offices operating outside Egypt. This in addition to making use of Egyptian embassies in order to attract more tourists from emerging markets notably Central Asia states, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Central Europe states.
He further underlined the importance of providing incentive offers for tourists from; Japan, China, Argentina, and Brazil. Such incentives can include direct flights, while focusing on activating new tourism types such as business tourism, ecotourism, and other forms.
On the other side, Tourism Expert Bassem Halaka, called for enhancing genealogy tourism and drawing programmes to attract Egyptian expatriates in cooperation with Egyptian Ministry of Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates Affairs. The expert said that one of the most successful means to enhance Egypt tourism is to focus on attracting more Arab tourists as pursuant to the rise in Arab tourism spending rates.
Furthermore, Halaka underlined that tourism services offered to tourists should be diverse, i.e Safari journeys, business tourism and medical tourism. He emphasised that developing amusing tourism sectors in addition to tightening security around touristic facilities are vital to encourage tourists to visit Egypt.
