The Egyptian Tourist Authority is participating in the TTG Rimini exhibition in Italy on Thursday which will restore Egypt’s share in the Italian market, an official in the Ministry of Tourism told Daily News Egypt.
Tourism companies and hotels wanting to participate in the exhibition must pay €1,350, according to the ministry official. This cost was reduced to encourage hotels and companies marketing in the Italian market during the coming period.
Italian tourism has showed signs of improvement recently, and the region saw a larger influx from the European market in general, according to chairperson of the Marsa Alam Investors Association Adel Rady.
The Italian government has not issued any warnings or banned its citizens from visiting Egypt; however, the number of Italians visiting Egypt declined significantly during the past period. There are expectations for the return of Italian tourists to Marsa Alam or Sharm El-Sheikh in the winter.
Rady expects occupancy rates to improve in November owing to the resumption of direct flights to Sharm El-Sheikh and countries changing their travel advice to citizens wishing to travel to Egypt.
Moreover, the government’s move to augment security at Egypt’s airports, and the positive results of inspections, will significantly help the return of tourism to Egypt, Rady added.
Tourism income to Egypt in the first half of 2016 declined to $1bn compared to $2.3bn in the same period last year. Rady thinks that the last quarter of 2016 will be better than the previous three.
