Egypt fears impact of EU crisis

There are grave concerns the European financial crisis could derail the recovery of Egypt's tourism sector, the country's minister of tourism says. "I'm starting to worry about the impact of the prevailing financial crisis in Europe, that could result in a slowdown of a world recovery if not a recession," said Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour. In February, tourism in Egypt was down 80 per cent because of the country's revolution, as tour operators cancelled holidays to the destination. But each month since the unrest ended the sector has made a steady improvement and by August it was down by just 20 per cent compared with before the revolution, he said. "I don't think that internal reasons pertaining to Egypt would have an impact on the flow of tourism in 2012," said Mr Abdel Nour, who was in Aqaba, Jordan, on Friday for an Arab tourism summit."I'm confident that the last months of the year will be good." He is forecasting a total of 11 million tourists this year, generating revenues of US$10 billion (Dh37.63bn). "This would represent roughly a [total] decrease of 25 per cent on last year." Mr Abdel Nour said the country was making huge efforts in terms of its advertising campaigns as it tried to regenerate its tourism sector. "This crisis is pushing us to diversify our markets. We're going east, we're going west. We're knocking on doors in China, in India, in Vietnam, in Brazil, in Argentina." Mr Abdel Nour said there was great potential to improve the tourism sector and widen the perception of the country as simply a cheap destination. Egypt's tourism industry last year accounted for 11.3 per cent of its economy and 12.6 per cent of all jobs. Twelve per cent of Egypt's visitors come from the Middle East, the country's second-biggest market after Europe, where 76 per cent of its tourists originate. Last year, Egypt had 53,815 visitors from the UAE, 8.5 per cent more than in 2009. Political instability in popular tourists spots including Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria prompted a 13 per cent drop in visitor arrivals to North Africa and an 11 per cent fall in the Middle East in the first half of the year, according to the UN World Tourism Organisation. This was in contrast to overall global tourism, which grew 4.5 per cent in the first half of this year from the same period last year to reach 440 million arrivals.