Private companies join in tourism promotion

CAIRO - 20 June 2017: In an attempt to increase tourism to Egypt, Chairman of the Tourism Promotion Authority Hisham Al-Demiri received 10 requests from tour operators abroad to organize joint advertising campaigns in Germany, Italy, England, the Ukraine, Belgium, Serbia and a number of new target markets.

In an exclusive statement to Youm7, Demiri explained that the joint advertising campaigns will mainly depend on digital/social media and outdoor marketing.

The campaign will mainly evaluate the measurable marketing criteria that will determine the effectiveness of the promotional activities and the achievement of the assigned objectives, he said.

Demiri pointed out that “the participation of the Tourism Promotion Authority in these campaigns will be determined according to the Authority’s vision and assessment of each market, in accordance with the ministry's strategy and priorities for each stage.”

The chairman added that the criteria for approving a joint campaign will mostly depend on the size of the incoming tourism to Egypt from each organizer and the clear appearance of Egypt’s name in the campaigns. He further noted that the authority is “open to any creative ideas that could include hosting international sports and arts events.”

“The authority’s participation in the joint advertising campaign is not mandatory but optional, targeting to be involved in campaigns with new emerging markets to increase the tourism size and traffic,” Demiri stressed.

Last week the Tourism Promotion Authority’s head said in a press statement that the authority started studying target markets and working on promotional plans before implementing them in order to achieve optimum results.

In the same statement, Demiri explained that “the annual allocated budget for Egypt’s international promotional campaign is $22m for 26 different markets. Each shall not exceed $800,000.”

In 2016, an advertising campaign that targeted 11 markets had a significant impact on improving the country’s image abroad, explained the statement.

The tourism sector in Egypt has suffered a decline since the 2011 turmoil kicked off by the January 25 Revolution, but there have been signs of recovery in the past few months. According to the Daily News, “The first four months of 2017 witnessed a remarkable 51 percent increase in the number of arriving tourists to Egypt, in comparison to the same period last year.”

Italian tourism alone increased by 140 percent in April over the same month a year earlier, as Italian news agency Agenzia Nova reported on May 29.

The Egyptian Tourism Authority launched a promotional campaign on May 28 on Italian television channels and another campaign kicked off June 5 on Italian social media, websites and newspapers.

Italian tourists were reluctant to come to Egypt after Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni was found dead on a highway in February 2016, but they have been arriving at various destinations in Egypt over the past few months.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) issued a report in 2017 containing statistics on tourism. The report stated that 5.5 million tourists from Europe and the Middle East visited Egypt in 2016.

Tourists from Western Europe account for 32.7 percent of the total number, while Middle Easterners represented 29.3 percent, Eastern Europeans made up 15.2 percent, and Africans’ share was 9.2 percent.
Tourists from North America and East Asia were 4.6 percent and 4.4 percent respectively. The share of Latin American tourists (0.6 percent) and South Asians (3.8 percent) were very minimal.
The number of tourists from North America, Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia increased in 2016 compared to 2015. On the other hand, tourists from Europe decreased dramatically in 2016 compared to 2015.