In an attempt to pump up dwindling flow of foreign tourists to Egypt, authorities here are attempting to rope in more Indian celebrities to woo travellers from India.
Tourism, which is one of the centrepieces of the Egyptian economy, suffered a severe blow due to many violent attacks by militants since the January 2011 revolution that toppled long-time president Hosni Mubarak.
In 2013, former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi’s ouster intensified the attacks, leading to a decrease in footfalls of foreign tourists.
The latest success of megastar Amitabh Bachchan’s visit to the country for the India by The Nile Festival has prompted the Egyptian Tourism to include more Indian celebrities in their effort to help them highlight the fact that Egypt is strongly back in the market.
“Indian tourists are one of our most important, promising markets. We believe there are lots to do in the Indian market over the coming few months to increase the number of tourists to Egypt. Some of them are directed to the consumers such as the India By The Nile Festival in Egypt attended by the great star Mr Amitabh Bachchan,” Ismail A Hamid, Egyptian Tourism Counsellor, told PTI.
Hamid said that the percentage of Indians visiting Egypt has improved in the last few months, which is the result of the positive news coming from Egypt at the Egyptian Economic Development Conference.
“Over the last few months we notice wonderful indicators of increasing. December 2014 has witnessed an increase of about 27 per cent compared to December 2013 while February 2015 has witnessed 24.1 per cent compared to February 2014,” said Hamid, who is based in Mumbai.
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