Adel El Masry: Egypt wants Indian tourists

MUMBAI, India – With Egypt’s parliamentary elections, the first since Mubarak’s ouster and intended as the first significant step towards a civilian democratic system, taking place next week, the Arab

MUMBAI, India – With Egypt’s parliamentary elections, the first since Mubarak’s ouster and intended as the first significant step towards a civilian democratic system, taking place next week, the Arab nation is expecting tourists, specially those from India, to return in droves.

“Earlier this year, Egypt faced a lot of political unrest in the country and as the situation has stabilised now, there is revival in tourism and the tourist inflow has started increasing, which is why, we have started five flights a week from India to Egypt,” Adel El Masry, Director Egypt Tourism Office in India, said.

“We have also doubled our tourism promotional budget for India from USD half million to USD 1 million in the current year,” he said.

Masry said, his office is targeting cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Jaipur. “We are not just focusing on big cities, but also on tier II cities.” “We are promoting Egypt as a preferred MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) destination and our main target is to increase the number of tourists from India by 50 per cent,” he said.

“An experimental marketing approach will be adopted, in which, tours will be organised for our travel partners to witness the destination in the aftermath of the political unrest and see for themselves that the destination is as safe and secure for tourist as it has always been in the past,” he said.

The famous Nile cruise has been restarted due to popular demand from tour operators and tourist around the world, Masry said. “We have reintroduced the Long Nile Cruise on the demand of the tour operators. It starts from Cairo to Aswan,” he added.

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Linda Hohnholz

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