In a roundtable session at Arabian Travel Market 2015, Egyptian Minister of Tourism Khaled Ramy revealed the plans for the North African country in the UAE to Hotelier Middle East.
When queried about the state of relations between the tourism authority and the travel trade, Ramy said: "We have excellent relations with tour operators in most European countries. The reason is that we have offices all around the world. And now we are going to open up our office here in Abu Dhabi on the first of July, and that I think is a kickstart for real tourism promotion in the whole area.
"They (the local team) will work with the tour operators here, they will do co-advertising, educationals... you name it, we will do it."
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This news followed Ramy's comments on the budget for the Ministry of Tourism for the year; while he could not commit to a fixed number due to pitches in progress, he said the generic advertising budget would be anywhere from $40-50mn per year on advertiisng campaigns, with a separate budget of $60-70mn for tourism promotions including co-advertising and chartered incentives.
He also revealed Egypt has reported a Y-O-Y increase of 6.9% in the first three months of 2015, compared to 2014. He added: "In March alone, we had an increase of 10.6% and in the first two weeks of April, we had an increase of 19%. The trend is going upwards."
However, he admitted the country was keen to ramp up its presence in the global market, to match its record year (2010, before the Arab Spring), where it received 14.7 million tourists from all around the world. In 2014, it closed the year at 9.9 million tourists.
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