Mashat Tackles Setting up Department for Tourism, Hospitality at AUC

By Hassan El-Khawaga

Tourism Minister Rania Al Mashat discussed on Tuesday with a number of the Board of Trustees of the American University in Cairo (AUC) possibility of developing a new pision for teaching tourism and hospitality at the university for the first time in cooperation with US University of Central Florida.

In a statement, Mashat said that the idea falls within a framework of the Tourism Ministry's cooperation with AUC to benefit from the human factor in developing the tourism industry.

The pision is set to aim at raising comprehensive tourism awareness for the students, she added.

The minister stressed the importance of improving the efficiency of the human factor as it is a major part of the ministry's structural reform plan to keep in touch with global trends.

Tourism is one of the most important service exports of Egypt's economy, she said during the meeting, reviewing the ministry's vision for achieving sustainable development of tourism. She also pointed out that the tourism sector serves more than 70 industries.

She described improving the human factor's efficiency as the software of the structural reform program while the hardware part is related to raising the efficiency of hotels and tourist facilities.

Meanwhile, the AUC officials pointed out that the US university is one of the pioneering universities in the fields of tourism and hospitality, looking forward to cooperating with the ministry to meet the needs of the Egyptian tourism market.