The Quality Tourism Alliance, Germany’s annual biggest tourism fair, is will set off this year on 17 October in Luxor.
According to Ahmed Shukry, head of the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Authority (TPA), describes the event, which will be held in cooperation with the Tourism Ministry and the TPA, as one of the biggest gatherings of tourism professionals in Europe. He expects some 1000 tour operators, airline and car rental companies, and tourism-related media figures to participate in the fair. “It is a business to business and business to customer conference that should help boost travel to Egypt, especially Upper Egypt,” he says.
Head of the Hotels Chamber in Luxor, Samir Isaac, says that the participants in the fair will be hosted in five of the finest hotels in Luxor, including the famed Winter Palace, and will have the opportunity to do the legendary sightseeing of Luxor’s ancient temples and tombs. The fair will open in Karnak and close at Luxor temple.
Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou expects the fair to help raise Egypt’s tourism revenue by 4 million euros next year. The QTA’s sales in 2013 amounted to 16.1 million Euros. Mr Zaazou said that the Tourism Ministry will host the 2016 International Tourism Bourse of Berlin (ITB Berlin), the world’s largest tourism trade fair, in 2016.
According to the Tourism Ministry, travel warnings by some 16 European countries last year against visiting the Sinai Peninsula in the wake of the terrorist bombing of a tourist bus that killed three Korean tourists and the Egyptian bus driver cost Egypt a USD1.3 billion drop in tourism revenue in the first quarter of 2014. That was down 43 per cent from the same period in 2013.
Watani International
14 October 2014