A number of tourism officials and investors said that the new promotional campaign for Sharm El-Sheikh will revive the city again, after a two-year boycott imposed by some countries.
Hisham El Demery, chief of the Tourism Development Authority, said that the campaign will be conducted according to the investors’ vision, along with the vision of the authority and the company responsible for marketing tourism to Egypt, JWT.
He pointed out that the authority allocated $10m to implement the campaign, among the funds allocated for promotional campaigns and not a new amount, adding that the campaign will last for six months.
He pointed out that the choice of the markets of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Poland, and the Czech Republic, in addition to a number of Arab markets, was agreed upon by the authority and investors.
He also stressed that the authority does not target a specific number of campaigns, but launches them and counts the numbers that are subsequently received.
The head of Egypt’s tourism bureau in Berlin, Mohamed Abdel Gabbar, said that the German market is preparing for all tourism promotional campaigns in the current period, especially as it leads the first place among the countries exporting tourism to Egypt.
He explained that it is expected to receive 664,000 German tourists at the end of August, which is the same number as the year before.
He pointed out that German airlines are calling for the extension of the programme to stimulate the aviation charter and regular flights as it will end in November, noting that it has achieved a lot of demands. He said that this issue is scheduled to be discussed with the Minister of Tourism in the coming period.
He stressed that flights from Germany are treated like the rest of flights from all country airlines.
Moreover, he said that the advertising company JWT is currently developing the final vision of the campaign to start the implementation of the campaign as soon as possible.
The head of the Tourism Investors Association in South Sinai, Hisham Ali, said that the first in a series of meetings concerned with launching the promotional campaign for the city of Sharm El-Sheikh has been held. More meetings will be held in the coming period to ensure the success of the campaign.
He pointed out that each country should have a different promotional plan than others, especially in countries that do not fall in one region, because of the nature of citizens that perceive campaigns in different ways.
He stressed that the current tourists in Sharm El-Sheikh are no more than 50% from Ukraine, Arab countries, and Germany and that the rates are scheduled to increase the proportion of Arabs during the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
Ramy Rizkallah, a member of the Committee to Promote Tourism to Sharm El-Sheikh Resort, said that all markets exporting tourists to the city are currently being assessed.
He added that the marketing committee of Sharm El-Sheikh is in the process of setting up events for the benefit of German tour operators during the coming period to activate the movement coming from that market.
He pointed out that the marketing committee is seeking to agree with a public relations company in Germany to learn about the quality of the tourists who want to visit Egypt and the most important interests they have at the moment to start working on it.
Maged Fawzy, head of the Tourism Investors Association in the Red Sea, said that the recent plan announced by the Tourism Development Authority regarding the promotional campaign for Sharm El-Sheikh is illogical under the boycott imposed by some countries.
He explained that Sharm El-Sheikh was dependent on British and Russian tourists and that both states are boycotting Sharm El-Sheikh, noting that both have not decided to resume flights.
He pointed out that contracts for the winter season have been concluded with no impact on the coming season, where the summer season is almost over.
Moreover, he said that there is a desire for the result of the coming committees to Sharm El-Sheikh in the coming days to inspect airports and secure them, which could revive the city again.
He wondered why the campaign had not been implemented before, especially since Sharm El-Sheikh was suffering from the harshness of the boycott from foreign countries since the end of October 2015.
He said that the announcement of JWT taking over the promotional campaign is aggregating, where it is responsible for marketing campaign and will do so naturally.
