Tourism Stats

[Hafiz]

The World Competitiveness Report for 2015 on tourism rates Egypt the 83rd most competitive tourist destination in the world and this is near the very undesirable Azerbaijan.

Their detailed assessment shows the factors which go into building up their overall rating:

“Egypt is 83rd in the global ranking and 10th in the region, with approximately 9 million tourists per year—below the country’s full potential as a price-competitive destination (2nd), with significant investments in the T&T (travel and tourism) industry (23rd). Egypt’s outstanding cultural resources (41st) and long history are perhaps under-leveraged, as reflected in a surprisingly low rank (60th) for oral and intangible heritage. Current instability is reducing Egypt’s appeal to international tourists, and limiting receipts and, hence, funds available for investment. It also contributes greatly to the low safety and security performance (136th) and might also have an impact on the country’s relatively limited international openness (115th) performance. In addition, ground infrastructure (103rd) requires a significant upgrade, especially in terms of quality of roads and efficiency of the transport network. “

Clearly security is the killer (about the worst in the world) but ‘openness’ (mainly visas and red tape) and infrastructure are also problems whereas price is a big winner. Cultural resources at 41st is not as high as I would have expected but might reflect years of poor international marketing or concentration on beach resorts. The oral intangible heritage is probably techno code for live cultural heritage which sort of makes sense if you are looking for Cairene events (other tan the grueling belly dancing) with an um kalthoum (sic) theme. Its a bit of a tangent on this point but one oud (live cultural) virtuoso is an Australian, Copt former Egyptian whose family fled because of persecution in the 1960's.

The other way of seeing it is that nothing is going to happen until the perceptions of security improve but those who think that just a new PR campaign and improved security, without other reform, will fix the current problems should read this report at:
http://reports.weforum.org/travel-and-t ... king-2015/

Australia is 7th even though it has one of the worst price competitiveness ratings in the world. Notwithstanding this we currently attract about one million Chinese and this is increasing at about 20% pa as is the Indian market. As everyone should know China and India are the future.

[Who2]

Iv'e been opposed to tourists of any shape or form anywhere,
"many are called few are chosen as in my book "where one leads others tend to follow",
it's a right bugger really, one tries no matter how hard, to escape the 'madding crowd, or 'aptly named sheep/punters...
Don't get me wrong I love them Iv'e been watching them for the last 3 hours in the sun sitting in my market,
in various local sunny hangouts, ending up here outside Cafe Kick reading obituaries of my mate, and drinking Effes.

It's nice to see we are still highly fashionable...
The restaurant opposite looks good and is cutting edge, but don't think they will last the course, "many are called.....few are
I think the market is slowly being 'Portuguese'd which is no bad thing in my book, a bit like parts over in Kensal Rise...