Society 363 / 2013
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Ägypten<br />
Interview<br />
“I try to send the right<br />
message to the world”<br />
SOCIETY interviewed Hisham Zaazou, the Egyptian Minister<br />
for Tourism, about the effects after the revolution and new targets<br />
in the tourism sector.<br />
Interview: SOCIETY<br />
How was tourism affected<br />
after the Egyptian<br />
revolution?<br />
Immediately after<br />
the Egyptian Revolution<br />
two years ago there<br />
were negative travel advisories by many<br />
countries which affected our business, and<br />
by the time the travel advisories were lifted<br />
it took a few months. So we ended the<br />
year 2011 by losing almost 32 percent of<br />
our business and thirty percent of our income<br />
compared to the big year of 2010. In<br />
that year we received 14.7 million tourists<br />
generating an income of 12.5 billion US-<br />
Dollars. In 2012 we started doing some activity;<br />
we ended the year compared to 2011<br />
with an increase in the number of tourists<br />
by 17.4 percent and an income of approximately<br />
15 percent. So we reached 11.5 million<br />
tourists in 2012 generating an income<br />
of 10 billion US-Dollars approximately.<br />
Is tourism one of the more important<br />
issues for the current government?<br />
Tourism is very important because it<br />
contributes 11.3 percent to our GDP. Of<br />
every Euro or Dollar generated by the<br />
Egyptian economy, 20 cents are generated<br />
by tourism alone. The tourism sector employs<br />
four million people.<br />
Has the group of customers changed<br />
a lot after the revolution?<br />
No, the pattern is less business, but<br />
the same source. In 2010 we had 76 percent<br />
visitors from Europe, both East and<br />
West; in 2012 it was 73 percent, still about<br />
the same. The second largest market is<br />
the Middle East, the Arab countries and<br />
the Gulf. About twenty percent come<br />
from there. The remaining six or seven<br />
percent is the rest of the world. The main<br />
competitors for us were Turkey and other<br />
110 | SocietY 1 _<strong>2013</strong>