Skip to content Skip to Search
Skip navigation

Egypt solves riddle of how to attract 30 million tourists

Egypt needs to portray itself in a different way to attract tourists Unsplash.com
Egypt needs to portray itself in a different way to attract tourists

Egyptian tourism minister Ahmed Issa has said that the country has worked out plans to attract 30 million tourists. 

“Egypt has always felt that it deserves 30 million tourists and the challenge that has been given to me as a problem solver [is to] figure out what to do and what needs to be done,” he told CNN Quest Means Business program.

“It turns out that it’s not a problem with demand – it’s with the supply. And now actually, we have developed plans, we have developed key highlights of actually what we want to do to try to fix the supply side.”

He stated that Egypt needs to portray itself in a different way to attract tourists and has invested in building infrastructure since 2015.

“If you look at the record of public spending in Egypt since 2015-16, there’s like no other in the history of Egypt.

“On roads, bridges, hospitals, airports, aviation and hotels. So I think Egypt has done most of that spending. And the time now is for Egypt to present itself in a different way to the tourist world.”

Issa said that the cultural value proposition is a competitive advantage. 

“In the pyramids, the Sphinx, the sunny days in Egypt. And at the same time, the people. You know, it’s just walking around the streets of Cairo and Khan el-Khalili and so forth. I think it’s like no other,” the minister added.

Tourism has performed well since the coronavirus pandemic as restrictions eased, Callee Davis, an economist at Oxford Economics Africa, said.

Oxford Economics envisages tourism receipts returning to pre-pandemic levels by 2024 and then growing by an average of 5 to 10 percent per annum over the medium term.  

Figures from real estate agency JLL show Cairo’s hotel sector doubled in occupancy rates to 60 percent in the first five months of 2022.

Latest articles

Jacksonville Port in Florida. A new container service connecting the port to Jeddha could improve Saudi exports

Florida port service could increase Saudi non-oil exports

Saudi Arabia’s exports are set to improve following the introduction of a new container service that will link Jeddah with Florida. Non-oil exports rose 4.4 percent year on year in February while production cuts led oil exports to slip to 77 percent of the total, the government said. Jacksonville Port Authority (Jaxport) in Florida said […]

An Emirates Boeing 777-300R. The Morocco facility will convert passenger planes to cargo

Boeing plane conversion facility to be built in Casablanca

A production facility is to be set up in Morocco to convert Boeing 777-300ER passenger jets into freighters. Stratos Industries will build three wide-body aircraft hangars at the Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca as part of a deal between US-based companies Kansas Modification Center (KMC) and Integrated Aerospace Alliance (IAA). KMC will convert up […]

Art NFTs Video length: 04:13

Dubai art dealer uses NFTs for fractional art ownership

A Dubai tech startup is introducing tokenisation to the art world, after the NFT bubble burst spectacularly. 10101.art aims to make investing in art accessible to all by selling digitised fragments of works by artists including Andy Warhol, Banksy and Picasso, allowing for collective ownership of a masterpiece for as little as $100 a fragment. […]

Rain falling on paved surfaces such as roads has nowhere to go, but retrofitting roads to allow rainwater harvesting could help, some experts say

Rain harvesting could help Dubai offset a stormy future

If last week’s floods made improving drainage a necessity for Dubai, the reward might come in the form of more natural water resources, provided the emirate can boost rain harvesting efforts, industry observers tell AGBI. “The main idea for countries, especially in drier areas, is to try to reuse water as much as possible,” says […]