The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) and the majestic statue of King Ramses II are featured on the cover of the January edition of Infortursa magazine, a leading Spanish publication on tourism.
The magazine also includes a two-page article about Egypt and an interview with Ahmed Issa, the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, who inaugurated the Egyptian pavilion at the International Travel and Tourism Exhibition FITUR 2024 in Madrid from January 24 to 28.
The minister had interactions with some of the most prominent Spanish media outlets, news agencies and newspapers, at the Egyptian pavilion.
He highlighted the GEM and the unique tourist experience it will provide to the world. He said that this museum is not only a cultural and economic landmark, but also a global scientific and educational institution. It will showcase the ancient Egyptian civilisation, its achievements in various arts, and its contributions to many of the concepts that humanity has followed until now and that have enabled human progress in all aspects of life.
He added that the ministry is aiming for new tourist markets, such as Australia, which saw an increase in tourist arrivals in 2023, especially after the opening of the Ramses and the Gold of the Pharaohs exhibition at the Australia Museum in Sydney last November.
The minister highlighted the diverse tourism products that Egypt offers to its visitors, with a strong competitive edge. He said that the Ministry is currently prioritising beach and leisure tourism, family tourism, adventure tourism and cultural tourism, which attracts tourists who are fascinated by the ancient civilisation and heritage sites, including those from Spain.
He also tackled the Ministry’s efforts to market the Greater Cairo cultural product, which aims to make Cairo a Short City Break.
He explained that this cultural product enables the visitor to enjoy eight different tourist experiences divided into several routes, featuring various tourist places, museums, and archaeological sites from different eras, such as Pharaonic, Islamic, Coptic, or Jewish.
The minister also met with various stakeholders in the Spanish tourism sector, including tour operators, officials, and owners and managers of tourism companies, airlines, and international hotels.
He reported that the last three months of 2023 saw the second highest number of tourists visiting Egypt since 2010, the record year for tourism, with 3.6 million arrivals in that quarter.
He further stated that the first 19 days of 2024 showed a 9 per cent increase in tourist arrivals compared to the same period in 2023.
Issa also noted that the number of airline seats to Egypt rose by more than 35 per cent in 2023 compared to 2022. He said that the government’s goal is to triple the number of seats by 2028, which would help achieve the tourism industry’s target of 30 million tourists.
He reviewed the hotel investment incentives that were recently announced to expand hotel investment in Egypt and increase the number of hotel rooms there.
He noted that they are being finalised in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance to send them to Egyptian banks to begin implementing them next February.
The Minister indicated that there are 5,000 new hotel rooms that were added during the year 2023 to the existing hotel capacity in Egypt, in addition to that 4,000 other hotel rooms that were closed were opened and operated.
During his meeting with one of the hotel groups in Spain, the group’s CEO said that the group has 2 hotel facilities in Egypt, and aims to increase them from 12 to 16 other hotel facilities in Egypt until 2030.
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