Tourists, or the Lack of Them From China and India.

Advice, information and discussion about Egypt in general.

Moderators: DJKeefy, 4u Network

Post Reply
User avatar
Hafiz
V.I.P
V.I.P
Posts: 1284
Joined: Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:23 pm
Has thanked: 614 times
Been thanked: 632 times
Gender:
Australia

Tourists, or the Lack of Them From China and India.

Post by Hafiz »

China and India are the number one and two sources of outbound tourists in the world and are growing at up to 10 times the annual rate of outbound western tourism. But you wouldn’t know that looking at the activities of the Egypt Tourist Authority that continues to put all its resources in the old and static western countries or in Japan.

http://www.touregypt.net/tourinfo.htm

China. Egypt was 14th on the list of outbound destinations in 2008 but has not appeared on this list (extended to 20 countries in recent years) in subsequent years to 2011 which might indicate that this business had been on the downturn well before the revolution. The 2008 figure was 36,000 about the same as South Africa (worst crime/murder rates in the world and a top contender on theft and street crime - makes Egypt look stable)

The Chinese are prepared to travel reasonable/big distances with Australia, Indonesia, Italy, Britain, Canada and Germany in the middle ranks of their total visits. Growth rates for these markets are between 20% and 40% per annum. Poor unstable countries don’t seem to be a turn-off with Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines in the middle ranks and, with one exception, showing growth rates beginning at 20% and reaching yearly growth of over 200%.

China’s outbound tourism in 2001 was 70 million.

India’s outbound tourism is expected to reach 20 million per year by 2020.

Dubai is currently a hot destination for Indians so clearly Indians are prepared to travel into the (comfortable) middle East http://www.iitmindia.com/uploads/iitmin ... Report.pdf

Surprisingly, South Africa is a rapidly growing destination for Indians so the prospect of violence and murder don't seem to be a turn off for them. http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... ai-airways.

Istanbul is also growing as a market for Indians and, as with the other growth destinations, direct flights seem important to that growth. Direct flights also seem to be a profitable two way business with Air India (the world’s worst Airline - correction Sudan Airways is the worst) participating.

Current numbers of Indian tourists to Egypt are 84,000.

http://travel.financialexpress.com/2008 ... et10.shtml

The opportunities in the Indian market may be less that they seem with a part of that growth due to visiting relatives. But Istanbul and South Africa as destinations seem to stand outside this.

Help is on the way. The Egyptian Tourism Counselor at the Egyptian Consulate in India is working on a intergovernmental tourism agreement for ‘someone’ to sign. Seems like amateur hour but initiative should be commended. Note he is not an employee of the somnolent tourist pashas who enjoy their European postings.
http://travel.financialexpress.com/2008 ... et23.shtml

It might be arguable that local conditions are less than perfect for tourists but what is unarguably true is that growth is in the east, these growth markets are pointedly ignored by the Egyptians who are paid to get tourists to Egypt and that their abject failure is shown up in the poor and declining Egyptian share of this eastern tourism growth. A complete clean out of the public servants in tourism could do no harm in the current circumstances and might also do good if resources were moved to China and India. There would be little to loose from a clean out as tourism could hardly get worse and the Russians will continue to come whatever happens.

Good luck to the Egyptian Counselor in India but I fear he is alone and, if successful, will probably be fired for showing up the pashas.

I've not read anything in the past 18 months on this forum about the performance of the Government Tourist Offices in Luxor and of those all over Egypt (30in all so many opportunities for patronage). How well do they do their job, do they speak a number of languages, are their employees prominent in voicing the need for government action to increase tourism, do they keep stats, are they prominent in the local tourism chambers/organizations, do they organize/sponsor/participate in training courses for tourism staff, do they get feedback from tourists etc. They should have a lot of time on their hands at the moment to do some deep thinking and try out some new ideas.


User avatar
Chocolate Eclair
Royal V.I.P
Royal V.I.P
Posts: 1621
Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:56 pm
Location: Luxor Egypt
Has thanked: 37 times
Been thanked: 300 times
Gender:
Contact:
Egypt

Re: Tourists, or the Lack of Them From China and India.

Post by Chocolate Eclair »

I don't think there is any money to do anything about the problem at the moment, if you read DJ's post in "Know Egypt" its seems money is being spent on other things.
Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post
  • Flights to China
    by Who2 » » in General Discussions and Rants
    5 Replies
    1409 Views
    Last post by Teddyboy
  • Egypt Air banned from China
    by crewmeal » » in News and Sport
    5 Replies
    3315 Views
    Last post by DJKeefy