Germania and FTI intend next winter to launch four direct weekly flights between Germany and Luxor, according to a Ministry of Tourism statement. The Ministries of Tourism and Aviation will facilitate the direct flights from Düsseldorf to Luxor in the next period.
“In order to recover demand on cultural tourism, we should work in two directions, nationally and internationally. On the national level, development would be through renovating river marinas. The Tourism Development Authority and the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation have established a plan to develop marinas between Luxor, Aswan and south of the High Dam,” said Tourism Minister Khaled Rami.
Rami noted that efforts to promote tourism in Egypt abroad would be undertaken through advertising, joint marketing campaigns to be arranged with tour operators, hosting media, and training sales employees on how to sell cultural tourism products. This would also be undertaken by maintaining incentive programmes for charter flights to Luxor and Aswan international airports.
Rami requested the hosting of workshops with tour operators and German travel agencies. He expressed the ministry’s full support of hosting foreign media representatives in Egypt. Therefore, in August and September, 500 foreign media representatives will visit Egypt.
Tourism occupancies in Luxor and Aswan remain low, according to the Egyptian Travel Agents Association’s (ETAA) Chairman, Tharwat El-Agamy. He said that occupancies vary between 10% and 15%, and that the terrorist attacks which took place in Cairo have impacted on the travel flow to Luxor. The reason behind this is that European travel agencies organise their tours to Luxor by passing through Cairo.
El-Agamy concluded that, when it comes to marketing and flights, it is better not to link Luxor to Cairo, in order to benefit the operating hotels in Luxor. More than 250 floating hotels remain closed due to the tourism recession that Egypt has been witnessing over the past four years.
