Egyptian and Italian companies stress domestic airfares are the biggest challenge to increasing traffic... and call for a road between Marsa Alam and Luxor
The Cultural Tourism Marketing Committee announced the start of preparations for an Italian tourism exchange in Luxor during 2020, under the auspices of the Italian Embassy in Egypt and in cooperation with the relevant authorities, with the aim of developing the volume of inbound tourism from the Italian market to Egypt in general and attracting more antiquities lovers to Luxor and Upper Egypt.
For his part, Mohamed Osman, head of the Cultural Tourism Marketing Committee, said Luxor witnessed the launch of the workshop between Egyptian and Italian companies, attended by Luxor Governor Counselor Mostafa Elham and the Italian Ambassador in Cairo, Giampaolo Cantini, which discussed the challenges facing an increase in inbound traffic and how both sides can overcome them.
Osman explained that the most prominent of these challenges is high domestic airfares, adding that the two sides called for developing a road between Marsa Alam and Luxor to facilitate tourism programs that combine cultural and leisure (beach) tourism. He noted that the discussion between the two sides during the workshop was constructive and revealed the Italian companies' desire to increase the volume of traffic and build diverse programs combining classic tourism, represented by visits to archaeological sites and Nile cruises, with leisure tourism targeting beaches.
In a related context, Osman pointed out that the committee was keen for the Italian companies and the workshop's guests to have a tourism experience in Luxor on the sidelines of the workshop, which helps the companies create attractive content to market the programs in Italy, in addition to visiting the Avenue of Sphinxes and some archaeological sites.
Osman stressed that the state of security, political and economic stability, the diplomatic relations between Egypt and Italy, and the efforts made by the political leadership represented by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi are a strong incentive for the tourism sector to make more efforts to develop inbound traffic in order to support the national economy and create more job opportunities, especially in Upper Egypt, which holds more than a third of the world's antiquities, an advantage that makes it a tourist destination without rival worldwide.
