Recent statistics state that tourism revenues in Egypt dipped by 55% over the past four years.
This was a wake-up call to the political parties who were keen to boost and develop higher-value added tourism activities. In light of the positive development, a detailed plan was recently unveiled at the Egypt Economic development conference to revive the tourism sector in Egypt. The plan involved an injection of US$ 1 billion into the sector by a private equity fund underwritten by Cairo Financial Holding. This step according to the government will have a significant economic impact.
HE Khaled Ramy, minister of tourism said: “In the last few years, political instability has hit the tourism sector hard, but fundamentals remain and we are confident that within a few years we can not only meet, but exceed our previous highs. Private sector investment is crucial to this recovery ensuring that both our standards and facilities are among the best.”
The Ministry of Tourism’s objective is to reach pre-crisis tourism revenue by 2016 of US$11.6 bn and to set the sector on an upward and fast-growing trend. The government is targeting US$15 bn of inflows by 2018.
Further government plan involves increasing average spending per stay of leisure travellers, this currently accounts for only 10% of total tourism spending, and boosting the business visitor segment. The strategy calls for extensive training programmes to boost productivity, increase tourists’ average spend per night through fostering tourism SME development, and fast-track development of new projects with simplified approval procedures and an improved land management framework.
The government also announced areas of land in prime locations for investment in tourism sector including a prime location on the Red Sea coast at Marsa Alam; a large land packet of 8.15 million in Gamsha Bay for development of a leisure complex; and a development opportunity in Sahl Hasheesh as a co-investor with the Egyptian Tourism Development Company (ETDCO).
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