By Akram Medhat
Cairo will host the third annual conference of the global company Expedia, the largest contributor to international online tourism traffic, to boost Egyptian tourism next Wednesday, under the title "Strengthening Partnership with Egyptian Market Sectors," to attract tourism to Egypt, in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism and the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Authority, with tourism officials and experts from Egypt and around the world in attendance.
Maged Mina Habashi, manager of Expedia's office in Egypt and Palestine, said the main goal of holding the conference is to boost tourism to Egypt through online hotel and flight booking, after noting the increase in demand for Egypt from international markets compared with last year, and even compared with the year before, 2015, which are very good indicators.
He explained that the conference will address a number of themes, most importantly improving infrastructure and facilitating Expedia's dealings with Egyptian sectors through its Cairo office, and removing all obstacles facing online bookings. The results of Egyptian tourism rates compared with previous years will also be presented, he added, as will the results of the advertising campaign launched abroad by the Ministry of Tourism to promote Egyptian tourism online, and awards will be presented to outstanding hotels in Egypt in 2017.
It is worth noting that the global company Expedia was founded by Bill Gates in the United States and was part of the global Microsoft group before separating from it. It is an online travel and tourism agency that offers its services in 75 countries around the world.
Its services include booking tickets on various airlines, hotel bookings, car rentals and organizing land and sea trips. In 2006, Expedia won the "Webby" award for best online travel and tourism website and the "Stevie" award for most innovative company from the American Business Association. It has 200 web pages visited by about 450 million visitors a month, and the company achieved sales estimated at about $65 billion in 2015.
