Opinion

Tourism is the motor of development in Egypt

Let's imagine that there is a European tourist sitting at his home, watching TV. While changing channels, he comes across an advertisement about tourism in Egypt. In that advertisement, he sees some of Egypt’s beautiful, God-given tourist attractions. So he decides to head to a tourist office to get more information, where he is magnificently received by the employee responsible for Egypt in that country, providiving with all information he needs.
 
From that point on, he embarks on his Egypt experience, traveling to Egypt, visiting multiple sites while paying for hotels, taxis, restaurants, shows, tours, and then shopping in bazaars, malls and tourist markets. Ideally, along each step of the way, this tourist not only enjoyed his stay in Egypt, but he also invested in our local economy. The tourism sector provides a wide range employment opportunities, perhaps wider than many think.
 
Let's move to another point, which is extremely important, namely growth and development of human behavior. It is known that sometimes negative cultural aspects of tourists can have an effect on the host culture, but the good aspects can also develop and teach the people good habits in the country they visit. Hence this effect is reflected on those who work in the tourism industry, like by gaining from the culture of a developed country without affecting on our traditional eastern beliefs and religious habits. With time we find these tourism workers have gained good habits from the tourists, such as looking after their won appearance and general cleanliness, whether inside their homes, or even in public, by not throwing the wastes in public spaces, etc., and these benefits can also extend to other sectors, such as hospitals, development of roads and airports, opening new facilities to serve this field, and hence provide new work opportunities to the male and female youth, seeking for work opportunities and honored life.
 
Let's go far with our imagination, and imagine that all this has actually taken place. So, what will be the status after ten years, whether to the country or individuals? We will not forget, as a consuming and unfortunately non-productive country, and hence the foreign currency, such as the US Dollar and Euro, control all prices inside the country! When we provide the hard currency, the rate of exchange will be settled, and the Egyptian Pound will be stable in face of other currencies, and thus prices will stabilize in general. This will benefit all of Egyptian society, even those who do not work in this field. Now, the question after all these facts, isn’t tourism worthy to be the national issue of Egypt? And perhaps it should even be changed into a National security Issue, as it affects both the people and country?
 
Mohamed Aziz is a tourism and culture consultant
 

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