Egypt targets Malaysia to revive tourism

The Egyptian Tourism Authority is targeting Malaysia as a future tourism market, especially the MICE sector, as part of a diversification strategy to improve tourist arrivals, according to Egyptian news sources.

Egyptian Tourism Authority general director of international tourism department Adel El Masry, said that the Malaysian market, which has been focused on religious and culture tourism, needed to be exposed to new areas in Egypt for MICE, honeymoon, adventure and diving tourism.

"We already have good contact with Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents (MATTA) and have discussed an online campaign to attract the Malaysian market," said El Masry.

Speaking of the MICE sector, El Masry said that Egypt has more than six international-standard conference and exhibition halls all over the country including in Cairo, Luxor, Alexandria and Sharm el-sheikh, with 260,000 hotel rooms available.

To boost tourist arrivals under the MICE sector, the Egyptian Tourism Authority will invite big corporations to hold their annual conferences here, he added.

"We plan to organise a conference for travel agents association of India in September for 700 members and I'm also in contact with MATTA to organise such a conference in October or November," he said.

According to World Bank data, tourist arrivals to Egypt dropped to around 9.4 million in 2011. In 2014, the number recorded was 9.6 million.