Professor Hanan Kattara (PhD.) Faculty of Tourism & Hotels Alexandria University According to “Egypt Tourism Sector Analysis”, tourism is the main source of foreign earning for Egypt, a leading Middle East country in terms of tourist arrivals.
2 OVERVIEW: The Tourism Industry in The Middle east & Egypt
The Future Of Travel & Tourism in the Middle east. Challenges for the region in delivering its current travel and tourism strategies. Global Drivers of Change - Understanding a Changing World. State of tourism in Egypt: International Tourism Flow to Egypt Domestic Tourism Tourist Revenues Accommodation
3 Going for Growth
Uncertain Future
4 Across the region, countries, states and cities are embarking on an unparalleled program of investment and development to increase capacity, improve infrastructures and grow tourist numbers and revenues.
Current estimates suggest that over the next 20 years, upwards of $3 trillion is going directly into leisure and tourism and indirectly into the supporting infrastructure.
5 Through projects announced to date, by 2020 the region will target; Adding airport capacity for 300M extra passengers Expanding its accommodation sector Growing visitor numbers to 150M Increasing the size of its aircraft fleet by over 150% by 2025
6 In studying the future one thing becomes clear, there is not one certain future that we are inevitably moving towards but many possible futures.
The future that ultimately emerges will be formed by our own plans and by changes and forces in our external environment.
7 The Region’s forecasts suggest annual travel and tourism revenues could increase 89% over the next ten years. The Personal and Business Travel sectors are both set to double in size. At the same time, capital investment of over $3 Trillion will fund a massive growth in infrastructure and accommodation.
8 The regions airlines will buy 870 aircraft by 2027. Travel and tourism is expected to create over 1.5m new jobs. The World Tourism & Travel Council estimate World Travel & Tourism Demand at US$12,119bn by 2016. Travel & Tourism in the Middle East is forecast ED to rise to US$279Bn by 2016.
9 Vision and Viability Information Reliability Innovation Competition & Cooperation Sustainability / Protection of Culture and Heritage/Volume vs. Value Differentiation and Target Market Service Standards Safety Resources
10 Vision: An analysis of the country strategies highlights that the region has the ambition, resources and commitment to turn vision into reality. Viability: The challenge is to ensure the long term viability of those strategies. Going all out to deliver 10M, 15M or 20M visitors presents one set of challenges, sustaining those numbers represents a very different issue set.
11 Raised ISSUES: How will we find future customers to sustain our visitor targets?
How will we maintain the price ?
What will it cost to update amenities and infrastructure to ensure we stay competitive?
12 The huge variation between the visitor forecasts coming from different sources. (national tourist agencies, the WTO, the WTTC and independent research houses).
Raised ISSUES: is there the potential for a central regional agency which defines standards, collects data and generates forecasts on a consistent basis so the outputs can then be used by everyone?
13 A wave of innovation has swept the sector and is creating developments like the Palms, the Pearl, the Louvre, Hydropolis underwater hotel, and the world’s largest buildings, hotels and airports. The region’s challenge now is to drive the next wave of innovation that emphasizes, Middle Eastern cultures, heritage and tradition.
Raised ISSUES What aspects of our culture, heritage or tradition will we emphasize in tourist developments and promotion in the future?
14 Average length of stay in some destinations is currently as low as 1.5 days. Destinations and attractions will need to drive up average length of stay and consider collaboration. Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and Palestine are already exploring the potential for marketing multi-center visits.
Raised ISSUES Can the region’s players get beyond competition to achieve win-win collaboration? How do we create a seamless and hassle-free experience for the multi-center visitor across the region and possibly with destinations in Asia?
15 Raised ISSUES Given the growing concern over the region’s supply of fresh water and the demands placed on infrastructure, will this inevitably force players to move up market and focus on attracting smaller numbers of longer staying, higher spending visitors?
16 The region will have no shortage of high end luxury developments and international standard attractions.
Raised ISSUES How effectively the promoters can identify and target the market segments who will be the most ready users of these facilities? On a longer term, there will be a growing need for differentiation between facilities within a destination and between destinations.
17 The issues of wars and inter-state conflict. Other challenges cannot be ignored – for example, could the region’s reclaimed islands be at major risk from rising sea levels? Weather related events such as tsunamis and hurricanes are expected to increase.
Raised ISSUES What impact might just one climate disaster or disease outbreak have on regional tourist numbers?
18 Human Resources Future Competition Sustainable Tourism Service Innovation and Excellence Information Communications Technology Aviation Efficiency and Performance
19 Human Resources Over the next 10 years, it is estimated that across the region over 1.5M new jobs will need to be created in travel and tourism. Impact –
The industry will need long term thinking about how it will recruit, train, reward and train personnel.
Partnerships may be required with developing nations to establish educational facilities that act as feeder programs for future staff.
20 Future Competition Tourists will have increasing levels of choice. Many of the emerging destinations will place a strong emphasis on local culture to differentiate their propositions and low wages may enable them to maintain high staff to customer ratios.
Issue- region’s destinations will need to identify clear target market segments and have differentiated propositions.
21 Sustainable Tourism Future visitor forecasts and development plans may need to be scaled back and greater focus put on the environmental footprint of existing and new developments.
Can the region respond by establishing global best practice standards on emissions, energy efficiency and waste?
22 23 24 Egypt attracted 14m visitors in 2010 and is targeting 16M by 2014.
25 Marketing and Diversification Number of visitors arrivals: Fluctuations and instability Changes in bed nights fluctuating and average length of stay Changes in Regions and Countries of Origin Demand / Product Match Issues
26 Marketing and Diversification There is a need to look into diversification of customers in order to achieve the tourism development target.
Considerable and complete services and provision of necessary information for individual visitors will be needed to increase free independent visitors in the future.
27 Number of tourists (million)
14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1982 1998 2000 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
28 Average length of stay
12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
29 Changes in Regions and Countries of Origin
2008 2009 2010
Russia Russia Russia
Germany UK UK
UK Italy Germany
Italy France Italy
Poland Poland Ukraine
30 Demand / Product Match Issues Historical/archeology tourism is a major tourism product for Egypt and will grow steadily in the future
Historical/archeology tourism with the Nile cruise is the most popular products in the top five countries of origin of visitors
Marine resort tourism is a more important product in Italy and Germany than in the United Kingdom and France. On the other hand, marine tourism does not hold any attraction for most Japanese consumers; Source: (survey of travel agents in Europe, 2009)
31 Demand / Product Match Issues In marine resort tourism, Mediterranean countries will provide stiff competition to Egypt because more than 50% of visitors to marine resorts in the Red Sea area come from Western Europe. Travel agents in Italy and Germany pointed out that Tunisia is a would-be rival because of its competitive pricing. Source: (survey of travel agents in Europe, 2009)
32 Supporting traditional tourism products
Developing New tourism products
Integration of tourism products
33 There is a steady growth of Egyptian visitors. Average annual growth rate is 11.6%. The average length of stay has increased 7.7 in 2010. Preferred tourism products by the Egyptian market is beach resort in summer holiday, week end or one day trip. Business trips may share rather large portion of the Egyptian tourism.
34 Villas and Second Home Seasonality Limitation of Disposable income
35 The Egyptian Tourism Authority emphasizes on plans and strategies tailored for domestic tourist trips. A rehabilitation plan of the state owned tourist centers in the Western-North Coast. is under way to add different small and medium size hotels, new tourist services and attractions. The effective domestic tourism in Egypt is depending on the increase expected in the Egyptian families' disposable income.
36 State of Tourism in EGYPT- Accommodation
Accommodations in Egypt 2010
UNDER- ACTUAL REGION CONSTRUCTION Number Rooms Number Rooms Hotels & 1007 174074 580 153573 Resorts Floating 282 16970 37 2601 Hotels TOTAL 1289 191044 617 156174
37 Financing new projects Geographical distribution
38 Geographical Distribution of Hotels
39 40 400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star Under Constraction
41 Tourism Development Program and Investment Opportunities Five priority zones for tourism development. Gulf of Aqaba Coast from Sharm El Sheikh to Taba Red Sea Coast from Hurghada to Marsa Alam Upper Egypt from Sohag to Aswan Mediterranean Coast from Alexandria to Ras El Hekma Western Desert, Faiyum and Siwa Oasis
42 Number of visitor arrivals to 27 million by the year 2017
Length of stay to 9 days by the year 2017
Bed nights to 230 million by 2017
Accommodation capacity to 618 thousand rooms by the year 2017
Tourism development projects in south Egypt
43 Integrated development programs for new tourist areas
New tourist camp sites for safaris
Preserve the ancient Egyptian civilization
Supply new sites for tourism development with all the required facilities like in the Red Sea, Sinai, the New Valley, Luxor and Aswan.
44 Thank You