By Akram Medhat
Mohamed Abdel Gabbar, Egypt's tourism counselor in Germany, stressed that Egypt succeeded in managing the crisis over the recent incident in which a number of female tourists were stabbed on the beach of a tourist resort in Hurghada, among them 4 German women.
He added that avoiding conflicting media statements is a fundamental professional tool in crisis management, and this bore fruit as no trips to Egypt or to Hurghada, the German tourist's top destination, were canceled, while the German Foreign Office neither changed its travel advice nor issued warnings to its nationals in Egypt.
Abdel Gabbar told "Travel Yalla News" that behind the scenes, the crisis management involved various bodies and parties. The committee included Ambassador Badr Abdelatty, Egypt's ambassador in Berlin, who was following the position of the German Foreign Office, and the Egyptian Tourist Office in Germany, which was monitoring reactions among tour operators, in addition to receiving many inquiries from German citizens and travel companies about the real situation inside Egypt and its security, "and we assured them that all tourists are safe, spending their holidays freely and enjoying them."
He continued: "Minister of Tourism Yehia Rashed was following the situation closely, and his visit to the injured and his condolences for the victims at the German Embassy in Cairo had a great positive impact." The crisis management committee also included the Governor of the Red Sea, Major General Ahmed Abdallah.
In a related context, Abdel Gabbar pointed out that the German tourism market, which ranks first in arrivals to Egypt, is seeing a strong recovery and rising demand for the Egyptian destination, as evidenced by growing demand during the summer season, even though German tourists tend to prefer the winter season. He noted that the number of flights arriving from Germany to the various tourist cities has reached 125, revealing that there are promises and indications that they will exceed 150 flights a week during the coming winter season.
He noted that the German people are aware that this incident was an isolated one that could happen in any country in the world, and that no security measures, however strict, can prevent such incidents 100%.
