How to sell Egypt

The coastal resort of Sharm El Sheikh on the Red Sea. Hoteliers report that due to the drop in tourist numbers the amazing underwater life in the Red

Trade relations
As a stopgap measure to reach the trade, Zaazou says the Tourism Ministry has requested that Egyptian embassies around the region get in touch with key tourism and travel players in their countries to disseminate the offer of financial and marketing support.

“In the medium term, we have plans to extend our network of worldwide offices to South America, Malaysia and the GCC, and we will open an office, probably in the UAE.”

In the meantime, Zaazou stressed that the ministry and ETA was ready, willing and able to support any trade initiatives to boost arrivals this summer: “Any enquiries can be made direct to our offices in Cairo, we can supply brochures, POS materials and host those who want to see the situation for themselves.”

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While hotels are putting packages together to incentivise the market, the ministry approach to place Egypt at the forefront of the GCC traveller’s mind is to couple an exciting entertainment programme with advertising — highlighting family attractions, beaches, shopping and nightlife.

“Last year, we experienced 11.3% growth in GCC visitors, up to 2.1 million, as well as a 17.3% increase as a result of our Fawanees Ramadan campaign which will be run again this year,” expains Zaazou.

“Our message this summer is to ask the Arab world to support us as we start to build a new Egypt.”
On that calendar of events designed to draw in the crowds, will be a host of big name Arab singers as well as Egyptian stars, with more than 100 music and dance performances already scheduled in.

“We will create different events pre-, during and post-Ramadan and the travel industry in Egypt has been very supportive with this initiative. Hotels such as Hilton and IHG have responded to our plans and suggested venues that will be not only in Cairo, but also in Alexandria, Hurghada and Sharm-el-Sheikh too.”

One problematic factor could be the curfew in Cairo which is still in place — last month operating from 0200 hours to 0500 hours — potentially a big deterrent for Arab travellers (particularly during the month of Ramadan). However, Zaazou is keen to emphasise that moves are in place to lift this: “We have made representations to have this removed for the summer and we have been advised this should be the case — we know it is an issue with the GCC market and once it goes, I believe there will be interest to come to Cairo again.”

Packaged goods
Following a plea from Egyptian authorities not to trash rates to win back business, the major hotel groups, at least, are heeding the message with standard summer packages coming in to the market, offering discounts of up to 25% on average.

For many resorts, however, pressure from agents and operators is resulting in off-message price cutting with discounts of 50% or more — an inevitable outcome of the fact that tour operators and agents virtually ‘own’ the room inventory, says Jeff Strachan, Marriott regional VP sales & marketing.

“Egypt is far more reliant on the trade than a market such as Dubai where there are more direct bookings,” he explains. “However, as the end decision is a consumer one, we have to wait to see where the market goes given that regional choices are becoming limited, and Dubai, Cairo and Sharm-El-Sheikh are probably the top three.”

Marriott has launched a summer promotion across its six Egyptian properties, capitalising on the ‘emotional pull’ of the 25 January revolution by stressing the ‘2’ and ‘5’ in a variety of guises, from free nights to room rate discounts.

“This will target leisure travellers but also meetings, corporate business and local trade,” explains Nadia El Ansari, director of sales & marketing at the Marriott Cairo Hotel. “It covers all our properties as we are promoting Egypt first, as well as the individual hotels.”

“We were at ATM to emphasise that it is business as usual, corporate travel is coming back but we know the regional leisure market will wait until the last minute before making a booking decision this summer.”

Wholesaler Destinations of the World recorded demand for Egypt during the show too, although not as high as previous years, according to group chief operating officer, Steve Harrop: “There is more confidence in the market, interestingly from Asia Pacific where we have seen a 10% year on year growth in to Egypt, while local business selling Egypt hotels to Egyptians has risen by 89%,” he said.

At IHG, regional VP operations Pascal Gauvin was optimistic that regional traffic would be back soon: “Even in a normal year, this is very short booking business with perhaps two weeks’ lead time, but we have done everything possible to make people come,” he said.

“We have seen some recovery especially in the city hotels with corporate business, local MICE and some banqueting, and one advantage we will have with our three properties at CityStars in Cairo is that this is a city-within-a-city, with on-site entertainment, restaurants, etc — and we will be opening the latter 24-hours a day this summer meaning visitors will have no need to go out.”

While discounted rates were unlikely to persuade travellers to come to Egypt if they had doubts about security, Gauvin said IHG had a range of promotions rolling out across both business and leisure sectors: “As well as the 25% room discount, we will offer double points to our business club membership, special honeymoon packages, ‘all-in-one’ packages for both resorts and Cairo hotels, bespoke leisure packages for our corporate clients and added value corporate rates.”