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Having been hit by internal political instabilities, the tourism industry has dedicated financial year 2011-12 completely to promote MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and events) destinations like Cairo, Luxor, Sharm el-Sheikh and Alexandria.
The promotional budget for the year has been raised to $1 million. The marketing activities this time will not be restricted to big cities.
“We plan to utilize our funds in three areas of focus - firstly the tour operators whom we will continue to support to sell Egypt as a destination; secondly, for the MICE segment we will invest to organise a familiarisation trip for the corporate houses in the last part of this year; thirdly, for tour operators we will organise more training for sales staff to learn how to sell Egypt,” said Adel El Masry, director, Egypt Tourism Office (India).
As part of the efforts to promote MICE destinations, the authority plans to organise Egyptian food festival for tourists from Mumbai. “We will also have special performances by artistes to showcase a new Egypt. We would also organise roadshows in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Jaipur. It is important for us to cover the whole of India and not just the big cities,” he said.
Between January 25 and Feb 1, when the socio-political upheavals hit the tourism industry, one million people cancelled their travel to the country. During January-April period, the country witnessed 43 per cent decline in inbound travel.
During the same period Egypt-bound travel from India dipped by 33 per cent. In 2010, Egypt-bound travel from India had seen a 36 per cent growth compared to 2009. The authority targets at least 25 per cent increase in travelers by the end of this year.
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