Managing Egyptian tourism through tourism governance

Abstract

Egyptian tourism has been hit by years of political upheaval and militant violence. Egypt’s tourism authorities expect the number of tourists to drop by 13 percent in 2015/2016, compared to the year before, reaching 9 million tourists and revenues are expected to fall by 15 percent compared to last year, dropping to $6.2 billion. Egypt depends on the tourism sector as a main contributor to the country’s GDP and has been engaged in attempts to revive the ailing sector that has been reeling from years of political turmoil. To deal with the tourism crisis, the Egyptian authorities agreed to allocate $5 million to support the sector. They agreed to launch a massive campaign to promote internal tourism. However, this is not enough, better management techniques should be adapted in Egyptian tourism industry. Tourism governance could be a useful tool for managing Egyptian tourism. This could be beneficial because tourism is a sector of activity that involves multiple interrelationships among various types of stakeholders intervening in the production of goods and services consumed by tourists. Indeed, this study overall objective is to analyze governance and positioning of local actors face to manage tourism, in order to establish parameters for more effective tourism management, giving answer for questions like: what are the various issues of governance planning in relation to the development of Egypt as sustainable tourism destination?, and what is the level of commitment of stakeholders to get effectively and efficiently management?.