Hesham Zazou: US Embassy Incidents Downs Tourism

Minister of Tourism, Hesham Zazou, said the tourism sector witnessed improvement during the last weeks; referring that the incidents that took place around the US embassy had a negative impact led to declining the occupancy rate by 38%.  
In his keynote speech, during the eighth conference of the Egyptian National Competitiveness Council (ENCC), the minister of tourism underlined the necessity of the tourism sector and its impact through the direct injection to the Egyptian economy, as there are more than other 70 industries linked to the tourism; describing the tourism as a horse pushes the economy towards progress.
Zazou mentioned the the statistics refer to diving the number of tourism last year, as to 9 million tourists and EGP 7.5 billion total income; compared to 15 million tourists in 2010 and EGP 15 billion total income. He affirmed that the tourism and food should come first in any economic reform program.