By Akram Medhat
In a meeting that is the first of its kind, the Chamber of Tourism Companies and EgyptAir organized a workshop to create a studied and unified vision for joint work in all tourism fields (foreign, domestic, Hajj and Umrah). The workshop was attended by 25 EgyptAir leaders, a number of the chamber's board members and about 120 tourism companies, and resulted in important agreements and recommendations that would push the travel and tourism industry in Egypt forward, serving the interests of both sides and thus the national economy.
On inbound foreign tourism, the meeting discussed the situation in markets that see demand for travel to Egypt but have no EgyptAir stations, such as South Korea, Latin America, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong. It was agreed to study operating points in those countries according to their operating capacity, led by South Korea and Latin America.
It was agreed to coordinate between the local and foreign agents and EgyptAir to prepare tour programs to Egypt, provide the seats required for those programs and guarantee a load factor to be agreed upon, in addition to making use of codeshare agreements between EgyptAir and other airlines to meet demand for Egypt in those markets.
As for traditional markets, especially Europe, and with the notable increase in demand for cultural and classic tourism in Egypt, it was agreed to prepare programs at competitive prices close to those of charter flights from those markets to coastal cities, to increase demand for cultural tourism in Cairo and Upper Egypt.
It was also agreed to take advantage of demand from cities and markets served by several regular EgyptAir flights by allocating a number of seats on those flights to tourism companies, in coordination with the foreign agent, to prepare programs at competitive prices for groups and fill empty seats on those aircraft.
Domestic Flights
Given the growing demand to visit Luxor and Aswan, it was agreed in principle to increase the size of aircraft on the current flights to the two cities and increase the number of flights to meet rising demand, in addition to operating flights between Aswan and Abu Simbel following the increased demand to visit Abu Simbel's tourist sites.
Hajj and Umrah
Regarding religious tourism, the Chamber of Tourism Companies agreed with EgyptAir to start studying early planning for Umrah and Hajj, setting capacity, flight schedules and prices from the beginning of the season, to facilitate the work of tourism companies.
This is in addition to an electronic link between tourism companies and EgyptAir's Hajj and Umrah department through central reservations to facilitate booking, studying an attempt to narrow the price gap in Hajj tickets between the tourism sector and the other bodies organizing Hajj, and studying the activation of so-called Umrah Plus, marketing tour programs to visit Egypt, especially its religious sites, on Umrah and Hajj trips from distant countries, to visit Egypt and Saudi Arabia in one trip.
To prevent a black market in Umrah, booking airline tickets will be limited to tourism companies that have a Saudi agent, with the Chamber of Tourism Companies providing EgyptAir with a list of those companies' names.
Airline Ticket Booking
As for tourism companies' work in booking and issuing travel tickets, it was agreed to regulate incentives for tourism companies booking tickets in a way that serves their interests and increases their work in this field, with a meeting to be held as soon as possible between the chamber and EgyptAir to set regulations for those incentives.
All IATA-accredited tourism companies and their offices will also be allowed to issue tickets on EgyptAir, in addition to coordinating with the chamber to begin urgent action against price-dumping policies that severely harm serious companies as well as EgyptAir.
At the end of the workshop, the two sides stressed holding several joint meetings in the coming period to follow up on the implementation of the recommendations and decisions it issued.
It is worth noting that the meeting was attended from EgyptAir by Amr Adawy, Head of Commercial Affairs; Ahmed Wagdy, General Manager of Networks and Fleet Planning; Sahar Shahin, Assistant Head of Sales; Salah Tawfik, General Manager of Sales; Engy Nabil, General Manager of Revenue and Pricing; Tawfik Shalaby, Director of Travel Agents; and Bilal El-Nakib, Director of Hajj and Umrah. From the Chamber of Tourism Companies, it was attended by Basel El-Sisi, the chamber's Vice Chairman; Nader Ayyad, head of the Aviation Committee; and board members Alaa El-Ghamry and Yousry El-Saoudi.
