Luxor4u

The Egyptian tourism minister told a conference in Milan Thursday evening that live webcams will be placed in the country's major tourist destinations to show the world the true conditions of the country.

Live-streamed surveillance of Luxor, Aswan, Sharm el Sheikh, Hurghada and Mars Alam will reveal to anyone connected to the Internet how tourists are spending their vacations in the land of the pharaohs.

''Egypt is a safe country,'' Egyptian Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou repeated several times to a packed press conference Thursday evening at the BIT tourism trade fair in Milan. ''One can not reduce a country extending millions of square metres into a few hundred square meters,'' he added, making reference to Tahrir or ''Martyr'' Square in downtown Cairo.

And although the Salafites are boycotting Valentine's Day as a ''Western, 'Christian' tradition that goes against Sharia law'' Zaazou sought to reassure the Italian market. ''Bikinis are welcome, and no restrictions exist of any type,'' he guaranteed.

''I am a technocrat and I do not belong to any political party. But I assure you that everyone in Egypt is very clear on the importance of the tourism industry, the only one able to function at the moment.'' ''This government and the president himself are firmly convinced of the fact that the path to take is openness and development in the sector,'' Zaazou said, adding that tourism employs four million people in Egypt. No administration ''can change this trend - I guarantee it,'' said Zaazou.

Zaazou thanked Italian tourism operators who continued to support Egypt over the last two years.

Zaazou reported that despite Egypt's political crisis, which hit the entire Egyptian tourism industry, there were 700,000 visitors from Italy in 2012. ''We expect to reach 1,000,000 Italian tourists'' this year, added Zaazou.

But if many of the beach locations are more-or-less managing, archeological sites continue to suffer, he said. ''At Luxor and Aswan, operators are suffering a lot,'' Zaazou confirmed.

Things may improve substantially thanks to a decision adopted by the Italian national tour operators' association FIAVET to hold its annual conference this April in Luxor.

''To calm Italian tourists and travel agents, we are going to a safe country,'' affirmed FIAVET President Fortunato Giovannoni.

Zaazou also asserted that, in addition to continued development of the Red Sea, the Mediterranean coast must also grow.

''Our intention is to increase domestic air transport to allow vacationers to more easily reach archeological pearls like Luxor from beach locations like Mars Alam. We'll do so by opening flight connections,'' Zaazou said.

Source: http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news ... 52949.html

Just hope the webcams have their own power supply and good internet connection otherwise the picture will be blank most of the time - not a good advert.

The upside is that the local boys can ogle topless Russians without going all the way to Hurghada!

Psst! anyone want a really good webcam...hardly used

I don't thinks its the sites that get the trouble and problems that are in the City Centre, but will show the hassle up nicely, "Beam me in Scotty" Maybe the cameras should be in the square next to Abu Haggag Mosque, both ends of Moudera Street, and at all major road junctions and Benzine stations.

You can have all the cameras you want but if the police are not on the job the cameras will have little effect. The perps. will do the job regardless of the cameras if they know the police follow up will be minimal. The camera strategy is easily got around, as the English know, all you need is a 'hoodie' to escape detection.

The whole camera issue and private guards is only patching up the deep seated problems with the police. The private guards (although necessary) may have the effect of promoting vigilantism - which seems to be a problem anyway.

Like much that is going on in Egypt the solutions are not fancy new ones but getting the existing ones to work and there is no shortage of police in Egypt, just poor recruitment, training, management and discipline. They are generally a disgrace and consume massive scarce resources (122,000 officers in 1987). It took decades for them to fall to the present level and will take years to revive - if anyone has the political stomach to do it.

I defy anyone to find any major western aid program directed to improving the police, yet all the western governments over the past 2 years have called for calm and better internal security. Oceans of western money can be found for Egyptian NGO's, including many who back improved human rights for marginal and disadvantaged groups, yet no money for the basic human right of safety of person and property. This is your money (EU, UK, US, Danish, Swedish, Canadian etc) being diverted to fashionable leftist causes in huge dollops. Here's one of hundreds of attacks on aid in Egypt and its political correctness. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/worl ... -democracy#

The police in any governate all report to the Governor so there is no excuse for local problems not being able to be dealt with locally rather than 'referred' to Cairo. You would think that local business interests would be banging on the door of the governor.

The US Senate in the last few days has called for a major shift in aid, including military aid, to more basic things including law and order. http://www.rollcall.com/news/bipartisan ... 378-1.html

It will still take a long time. Maybe there is an upside - investment in private security firms for anyone with some lazy cash.