By Akram Medhat
JWT, the company responsible for the international promotional campaigns for the Egyptian tourist destination, has won the gold and silver Effie awards for the Middle East and North Africa for its Egyptian tourism promotion campaign "This Is Egypt," which has achieved many accomplishments since its launch in 2015 in cooperation with the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Authority.
This global award aims to shed light on excellence in marketing, honoring the best ideas and marketing campaigns that have managed to make a clear and tangible positive impact, across all disciplines and categories among companies operating in the Middle East.
The winners of this year's Effie Awards were announced in Dubai, and the Egyptian tourism promotion campaign was honored in two prestigious categories: the first was the gold award in the "Travel, Tourism and Transport" category, and the campaign also received the silver award in the "Renaissance" category.
For his part, Hany Shoukry, CEO of JWT, stated that winning the Effie awards is a real indicator that the campaign is successful and has positively affected tourism in Egypt, adding that the campaign has contributed effectively to promoting tourism in Egypt and that the tourism sector is indeed on its way back to normal, if not better.
In a related context, Hesham El-Demery, head of the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Authority, praised what the promotional campaigns have achieved on the ground and the international awards they are winning, noting that tourism has begun to recover and the initial indicators are more than positive. He added that Egyptian tourism needed a campaign of this kind, as it is the sector most affected in recent years, "but the situation in Egypt is stable now, and we are working to remind the world of the beauty of the Egyptian destination."
The award announcement comes at a time when Egyptian tourism is recovering, as the number of foreign tourists arriving in Egypt in 2017 has achieved an unprecedented increase of 53%, and the number of tourists from European countries has risen by 90%, a big and marked improvement compared with last year.
Egypt also topped the list of the best Arab countries in terms of reputation worldwide, according to a study by the GfK institute, ahead of the Arab countries included in the evaluation, namely the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, while Germany topped the list worldwide, according to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, confirming the success of the steps taken by the Egyptian government and the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Authority to improve Egypt's image on the global tourism map.
It is worth noting that the Effie Awards are given annually in the field of marketing communications by Effie Worldwide, Inc., a non-profit organization, to honor the most effective marketing ideas.
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