Egypt Tourism to go aggressive on marketing

Considering Asia and India as a big source market on the leisure as well as MICE front, and to boost tourism following the political unrest in the country, Egypt Tourism Office is all set to go aggressive on its promotional activities. Adel El Masry, director, Egypt Tourism Office said, “We are allocating significant funds for marketing and promotional exercise in this country. We have already doubled our tourism promotional budget for India from US$ 0.5 million to US$ one million in the current year. The main target for 2011 is to increase the number of tourist arrivals from India by 30 per cent.” According to him, Egypt received 1,14,000 Indian tourists in 2010. Egypt Tourism is looking to work closely with various travel agencies, tour operators and the airline companies flying tourists into Egypt to promote the destination and increase tourist traffic. Apart from cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Chennai, it is also focusing on the tier II cities.

Retaining the focus on MICE, Egypt Tourism is aiming to invite more corporates to the destination. Masry said, “Our research shows that more than 40 per cent of outbound passengers from India are for MICE. We plan to utilise a large portion of this figure to participate in MICE events for tour operators and corporates. We have also invited associations like TAAI and TAFI to select Egypt as the destination for their 2011 annual conferences.” On Egypt’s marketing strategy, he stated, “Our strategy has three aspects - to provide continuous support to the tour operators to sell Egypt as a destination, focus on media and FAM trips, amongst others and organise trainings for the sales and marketing staff of tour operators so that they have sufficient knowledge to sell Egypt as a tourist destination.”

Source - expresstravelworld