President of the Tourism and Aviation Committee of the Egyptian Junior Business Association (EJB) and CEO of Egyliere Travel Mohamed Kaoud says tourism is a critical strategic sector for the economy.
Hence I highlight the strategic and economic importance of both outbound and inbound travel and the serious situation that businesses face.
Tourism constitutes 10% of the average total income of the world’s economies. This sector constitutes 18 % of Spain’s income, 16 % of France’s income, 11.9 % of Egypt’s income, and 3.5% of Saudi Arabia's income before COVID19.
During this very challenging time, Egypt witnessed a record rise in tourist arrivals. Approximately, 300,000 tourists have arrived since July.
Egypt’s daily tourism rate until the end of August was around 6,000. Since Egypt made the PCR test a compulsory term for travelers, the numbers decreased by 60%, from 6,600 to 2,400 per day. However, the numbers started increasing again exceeding 3,000 tourists a day.
Egypt has witnessed a 26% rise in searches in regards to domestic tourism during the 2020 summers and by 53% for the ones who searched for “domestic flights”.
At a recent global webinar on the tourism industry, experts emphasized the importance of domestic tourism and its natural choice for a wide pool of travelers.
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President of the Tourism and Aviation Committee of the Egyptian Junior Business Association Mohamed Kaoud[/caption]
Stakeholders should stay prepared for this as domestic tourism has unlimited opportunities that need to be promoted by proper branding. Domestic flight numbers should start increasing gradually and overcoming the challenge of reaching a tourist destination within Egypt.
In conjunction, the Egyptian Tourism Ministry launched an awareness campaign about civilization in cooperation with the National Bank of Egypt, on the history of the country’s civilization and monuments.
It has been a period of reflection that made us think about how our industry can reinvent itself to adapt to the changes that are taking place all around us.
The travel industry is in desperate need of an urgent and further tailored support package to enable its survival. Working in collaboration with our partner organizations gives us all a combined voice that the government can consider and act upon.
We are strategically thinking of saving the future of the travel industry and achieving sustainable tourism and hospitality growth that will save jobs and businesses and add further opportunities for recruitment that goes along Egypt Vision 2030.
UNWTO reported that a majority of 53% of destinations around the world have now started easing travel restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Destinations that eased travel restrictions generally have high levels of health and hygiene infrastructure as well as a comparatively low COVID-19 infection rate.
Egypt's infection rate is quite low, hygiene standards are constantly improved and its health infrastructure is getting better and better every day with the newly developed roads, clinics, and hospitals. We have an opportunity to capture those destinations and increase tourism arrivals from them.
The World Travel & Tourism Council and UNWTO have introduced new applications that can help governments and the private sector observe the changes in the tourism industry and act accordingly to their benefits.
UNWTO launched a new Tourism Recovery Tracker to support global tourism in a time when growing numbers of countries around the world have started easing travel restrictions.
The move comes as the latest concrete action undertaken by the United Nations specialized agency as it leads the response of global tourism and guides recovery. It compiles all the relevant data in one place and provides governments and private businesses the ability to track the recovery of tourism at a global and regional level
WTTC also launched a new in-depth data dashboard that highlights the recovery of travel demand across flights and hotels, as well as reveals the shifting intentions of travelers through online travel searches.
The dashboard shows that adventure travel is the fastest recovering search segment globally, at just 10% down on last year, as compared to 40% for other segments such as urban, sun and beach, family, culture among others.
WTTC along with The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) recently published a set of recommendations for the safe reopening of customer-facing businesses and released a ‘Quick Restart Guide for Employers’ in recognition of the challenges faced by the travel and tourism industry to provide businesses with recommendations for ensuring operational readiness, preparing staff and limiting the risk of exposure to the virus within workplaces.
With over 150 million travel and tourism jobs lost since the COVID-19 outbreak, more needs to be done to address the challenges faced by the businesses of which many are SMEs with limited resources.
It is heart-warming to see how the industry continues to rally together to support one another and share expertise.
The Egyptian private sector in cooperation with the government should synergize with the neighboring countries and leading countries in the region for combined packages and marketing to further strengthen relationships and provide sustainable growth for each party.
Saudi Arabia is working on opening 38 tourist sites in seven tourist destinations by 2022 and to provide 260,000 jobs during the next three years.
A number of major projects, on which the Kingdom is banking on a lot to achieve its tourism goals and aspirations, and raise the level of quality of infrastructure and services, such as NEOM, the Red Sea, Qiddiya, and Al-Diriyah Gate”, which were inaugurated recently. FDIs, Partnerships, and combined packages would benefit both destinations and flourish their economies.
Dubai forms a new committee to boost the MICE sector. A new Business Events Stakeholders Committee with the resumption of conferences, meetings, and exhibitions.
The committee will comprise key industry stakeholders who will meet regularly throughout the year, and provide a platform for two-way dialogue around the continuous strategic and operational development of the competitive position of Dubai as a host city for international business events.
Business events play a critical role in driving economic development and knowledge growth and definitely, the resumption of activity will have an impact on the wider region. Egypt should take similar initiatives and introduce a calendar of events that the whole region can benefit from.
The successful tourism sector will only be built by the private sector, which adopts the concepts of supply, demand, and competitiveness.
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