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Egypt woos its GCC neighbours

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LAST year, a new campaign was launched by the Egyptian Tourist Authority (ETA) calling on Arabs to rediscover the true spirit of Egypt. Authority chairman Amr El Ezabi launched the promotion calling on visitors from the region to reacquaint themselves with his country’s rich heritage, lively entertainment and vibrant destinations which he said have inspired memorable experiences since the dawn of time.

The new campaign – ‘Egypt…the beginning of the tale’ – will cover the GCC markets including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Qatar as well as Jordan and Libya. The integrated promotional campaign includes highly creative advertisements on television, press ads, outdoor placements and an extensive online component.

The ETA relaunched its official Arabic website (arabic.egypt.travel) with the revamped site reflecting the creativity of the campaign while providing an exciting insight into the various tourist destinations and products such as city breaks in Cairo and Alexandria, the northern coast, luxury resorts in Sinai and the Red Sea, Nile cruises, spa and wellness tourism, shopping and Ramadan breaks.

The new campaign aims to improve the image of Egypt through highlighting the diversity of Egyptian tourism products and the quality of tourist services. Its key objective will also be to attract new segments of visitors throughout the year by focusing on new tourism categories such as health, five-star and luxurious resorts on the Red Sea, Cairo by night, and the north coast.

Following a relatively modest decline in foreign tourist arrivals in 2009 of 2.3 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y), to an estimated 12.4 million people, the Egyptian tourism sector recorded a strong rebound in arrivals in the first half of 2010. According to the Ministry of Tourism, tourist numbers increased by a robust 21 per cent y-o-y in 2010, to over seven million visitors, while tourism revenue was up by nearly 18 per cent y-o-y to $5.6 billion over the same period. The authority is working to maintain and grow its tourist traffic to reach 16 million visitors in 2014 and 25 million by 2020.

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