EGYPT: Tourism Lifeline Feels the Strain

By Adam Morrow Reprint | | Print |

Adam Morrow

CAIRO, May 16 2005 (IPS) - The tourism industry in Egypt is keeping a close eye on business following two recent attacks that appeared directed at Westerners.

Some operators have reported cancellations, while others see no change. Tourism is Egypt’s premier foreign currency earner.

“The effects were very limited. It lasted two days, and now it’s over,” ministry spokesperson Hala Khatib told IPS.

Hoteliers in Cairo confirmed that after a spate of cancellations in the immediate aftermath of the attacks Apr. 30, business had quickly recuperated. “There were a lot of cancellations, but only in the first four or five days after the attacks,” said Saly Nassif, reservation manager at Sofitel which owns a number of hotels in Cairo.

Both attacks – like an earlier April 7 suicide bomb in Cairo’s historic Al-Azhar district – took place in the capital near destinations known for heavy tourist traffic.

The first was carried out by an alleged suicide bomber. According to the official account, he was pursued by police, and threw himself off a bridge adjacent to the Egyptian Museum, detonating a home-made explosive device as he hit the ground. The blast killed the bomber instantly and injured an Israeli couple, a Swede, an Italian and three Egyptians.

The second attack came less than two hours later, when two veiled women shot at a bus carrying tourists in the Sayida Aisha neighbourhood, close to the historic Mohamed Ali citadel. One of the two women was then said to have shot the other, and then herself. She died instantly, and the other died of her wounds in hospital shortly afterwards. No one else was killed or injured in that attack.

Managers say the effects of these incidents on the tourism industry were limited to Cairo, while destinations outside were unaffected. “We’re 100 percent booked,” said Ahmed El Meligui, associate director of sales at the Grand Hyatt in Sharm El-Sheikh. “We were full to capacity before the incidents, and we’re still full now.”

He added that the hotel was scheduled to host three major conferences, none of which had been cancelled. “There have been no cancellations, on the tourism side or the business side,” he said.

Khatib from the tourism ministry said Cairo’s hotels were doing better than anticipated for the season. “Average occupancy rates for the hotels in Cairo exceeds the levels expected for this time of year..” Khatib spoke of a 75 percent hotel occupancy rate for the Greater Cairo area, 85 percent in South Sinai and 90 percent in the Red Sea resort city Hurghada.

But she conceded that there had been some hesitation among vacationers to make forays into the capital from other locations in Egypt. “Tourists staying at Red Sea destinations, for example, have the option to take trips into Cairo, and a small number of these opted not to make the trip,” she said.

Several people in Cairo who profit indirectly from the industry say there has been a change since the attacks. “Before the incident, there were loads of tourists, but now there are noticeably less,” said taxi driver Ahmed Abu Youssef. “We taxi drivers are the first to feel it if there’s a lull in tourist traffic.”

The ministry of the interior says the perpetrators of the April 30 attacks were all related. The first bomber was the brother of one of the female attackers, and fiancé of the other. And all three – along with a handful of other wanted suspects – were associated with Hassan Ahmed Bashandi, the 18-year-old engineering student who carried out the earlier Al-Azhar attack.

But the official account of the circumstances has been challenged in the independent and opposition press.

“The bomb was dropped by the perpetrator from the bridge, or he fell with the bomb from the bridge…or the bomb fell from the bridge and he fell after it – at least we know the bridge was involved”, read a headline in the May 4 issue of the independent weekly Al-Dustour.

The Islamist-oriented weekly Afaq Arabiya also questioned the official story. “All the circumstances suggest something illogical about the latest explosions,” it wrote in its May 5 edition. “Eyewitnesses – who completely contest the explanations offered by the interior ministry – agree that the bomber didn’t jump from the bridge, but that the bomb was thrown on him from the bridge.”

The May 4 issue of the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that surveillance cameras near the scene had caught everything on videotape, corroborating government reports. “The scenes recorded on the cameras confirmed that…the terrorist threw himself from the top of the bridge, carrying the bomb, and landed among foreigners and locals,” the paper reported.

A source at that newspaper conceded, however, that the article had relied on statements by security officials and that no journalist had watched the videotapes in question.

Authorities are still searching for other possible associates of the attackers. “State security is here everyday,” said a resident of Shubra Al-Kheima, the Cairo neighbourhood in which the alleged perpetrators lived.

According to the May 8 edition of government daily Al-Ahram, police in Libya arrested the younger brother of the bridge attacker, and handed him over to Egyptian authorities.

Security officials also kept an eye on tourist cancellations in the wake of the incidents – an indication of the sector’s economic importance. “State security is calling every 15 minutes, asking about cancellation rates,” said an employee at a hotel chain several days after the attacks. “They want to know their nationalities and their exact reasons for canceling.”