By Akram Medhat
Minister of Tourism Yehia Rashed met with the Austrian Ambassador in Cairo, Georg Stillfried, to discuss ways of tourism cooperation between the two countries and mechanisms to boost arrivals from Austria to Egypt. A number of topics and proposals were discussed, including increasing direct flights between the two countries, as well as operating regular flights from Austria to Egyptian tourist cities, most notably Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh.
The two sides agreed to draw on some Austrian specialists in the field of public health to train hotel sector workers and raise their efficiency, and they also discussed holding a number of joint events between the two countries, including food festivals and competitions attended by food and cooking specialists from Austria.
In a related context, Rashed reviewed the measures the ministry is taking to boost inbound tourism from various markets, most importantly the incentive program for regular low-cost and charter flights, and discussed mechanisms for applying it in the Austrian market to increase tourist flights.
For his part, the Austrian ambassador expressed his full readiness to cooperate with the ministry to boost inbound tourism to Egypt from Austria, hoping that tourist numbers would return to their former levels, which peaked in 2010, and expecting them to increase in the coming period.
According to tourism statistics obtained exclusively by Travel Yalla News, Austrian tourism in Egypt recorded the arrival of 90,000 tourists from January to September 2017, up 90% from the same period in 2016, spending about 1.1 million tourist nights, an increase of 255%.
