A sharp blow to Egypt’s already stumbled tourism

The Oct. 31 downing of the Russian airliner Metrojet over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which killed all 224 passengers and crew aboard, represents the latest blow to Egyptian tourism, which has been reeling since the 2011 Egyptian uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

The flight, bound for St. Petersburg, took off from the beach destination Sharm el Sheikh, which many considered a relative safe haven — filled with lavish resorts and popular with scuba divers — in an unsettled region.

Whether or not the incident was instigated by terrorists as many suspect, travel experts say the news is likely to cripple Egypt’s fledgling tourism recovery, and point to the previous fallout of Egyptian tourism for signals where travelers may go next.

“The future, at least in the short term, may be fairly bleak even though the Egyptian Tourist Board is denying it,” said Lynn Minnaert, an assistant professor at New York University’s School of Professional Studies Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism.

She identified attacks on tourists in the region, particularly in Tunisia, on mostly European museumgoers in March and British sunbathers in June, as contributing to Egypt’s decline.

“Two terrorist attacks reinforce that it’s not a one-off and these countries remain unsafe,” she said. “It’s still North Africa and the image melds together into an unsafe area.”

Nonetheless, some Americans were showing interest in returning to Egypt, according to travel agents, though Sharm el Sheikh was not on their itineraries.

“When Europe is freezing and Moscow is under six feet of snow, it’s a short-haul trip to the sun; it’s their Caribbean,” said Jim Berkeley, the founder and chief executive of Destinations & Adventures, who specializes in Egypt. He estimated that no more than 20 percent of his clientele bound for the country stopped in Sharm el Sheikh, and then usually to make the trip to St. Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, about three hours’ drive away.

“We were seeing very, very small numbers of Americans heading back to Egypt but when they do go, they go to Cairo and the Nile,” said Malaka Hilton, the chief executive of Admiral Travel International, a Virtuoso member agency in Sarasota, Fla.

Of Egyptian descent, Ms. Hilton spent her own 1998 honeymoon at Sharm el Sheikh but had stopped sending clients there in the past few years as the destination became flooded with Europeans enticed by low fares offered after the 2011 tourism crash.

“Americans don’t want to sit on a beach on the Red Sea and get tan,” she said. “They can do that anywhere.”

Egypt’s loss, however, may be Morocco’s gain.

When incidents like this happen, “people go down their bucket list and say, ‘Let’s give Egypt a rest,’” said Mr. Berkeley of Destinations & Adventures, who identified Morocco and Turkey as offering equivalent cultural appeals in the region, including intriguing mosques and Islamic culture.

After 2011, Ms. Hilton said, bookings picked up in India and China. Both offer exotic and culturally rich alternatives, though she also said other long-haul destinations such as Australia and New Zealand picked up based on travelers’ already established commitment to go farther from home than normal.

The tour company smarTours had 100 clients in Egypt at the time of the revolution who were safely evacuated, though the company has not returned since. According to a co-chief executive, Greg Geronemus, travelers gravitated to tours in Morocco highlighting the souks, the Sahara and the fortified city of Ait Benhaddou, where the 1962 movie “Lawrence of Arabia” was filmed. Traffic in Dubai and Abu Dhabi also grew in part, he said, because they offer good value for luxury travel.

For travelers already booked to visit Egypt, at least one security firm said there was no need to change plans. The firm, International SOS, evaluates travel risks for corporations, governments and organizations globally. It has not changed its assessment of Egypt since the Metrojet crash and recommends that clients proceed with caution.

“We would advise leisure travelers to take the same sorts of precautions we would advise business travelers, which includes having access to up-to-date information and engaging a driver who speaks the language,” said James Bird, the regional security manager for International SOS, from Dubai.

He added that the chief risk in Egypt, as in many other countries, is a traffic accident.

Source: The New York times