Egypt launches aggressive marketing campaign

[dropcap style=”2″ color=”#f50a0a” text=”Its “]campaign will target the UK market, which dropped 5% last year. Egypt plans to lure tourists back as troubles fade, Egypt has outlined plans to regenerate its tourist industry in a bid to woo back visitors. The UK was only down by 5% in terms of tourist arrivals in 2013, demonstrating that the British market has a resilient passion for all that Egypt has to offer.

[blockquote style=”quote” align=”” author=”Omayma El Husseini, ETA’s director of UK & Ireland.”]Egypt has invested in an aggressive promotional campaign in the UK & Ireland to promote the country as an attractive and safe destination.[/blockquote]

Egypt has had a year to forget regarding tourism with protests, riots and deaths in the capital Cairo, kidnappings between the capital and the Red Sea coast and the continued uncertainty over the political situation deterring would-be visitors. It’s not surprising then that bookings were down last year but the impact on the Egyptian economy has been increased when one considers it was a year when holiday bookings were predicted to rise.

To stem the tide, the Egyptian tourist authority is launching what is called an ‘aggressive’ marketing campaign aimed at the UK market, the only one in Europe expected to see a substantial increase in overseas travel in 2014.

2014 is a key year for all Egyptians who are looking towards political stability, security and the enhancement of the livelihoods of the country’s population. Since the UK Foreign Office lifted its ban on some areas, tourist officials have been busy exploring long term initiatives to provide an “enhanced and safe” tourist experience.

[blockquote style=”quote” align=”right” author=”Stephen Banks”]I think the Red Sea and the classical Egypt business will come back in the fourth quarter, when the next peak season starts.[/blockquote]Stephen Banks, director of sales and marketing for Africa for hotel chain Movenpick, said he believes tourism in Egypt will start to recover at the end of this year.

Movenpick has 10 hotels in Egypt, including one in the Red Sea and one near the Pyramids, and also operates eight boats on the Nile. Generally the Red Sea has come back very quickly and visitors are quite resilient, but we’re still seeing occupancies of 55%-65%, when we would normally expect 85%.

Since January 2011 it’s been a rocky road and business has dropped off massively, He said the recovery would largely depend on operators, whose decisions over flight capacity impacts hotel occupancy and rates.