In most of the countries of the world, there is a very real correlation between the performance of their tourism industry and the performance of their property market. This is because quite often, foreign investment into a property market is what really gets it going and that foreign investment is often triggered through strong tourism and hospitality services.
In Egypt, however, the two are linked much closer than they would be in most countries because of the sheer strength and importance that the tourism industry has on the economy of Egypt in general and all of the different industrial sectors in particular.
This week, the Egyptian tourism market received both good and bad news.
The bad news was that the tourism market for ancient structures just got a bit bigger, as Guatemala, home to some of the largest Mayan pyramids ever created, decided to make those pyramids available to public tourism. This is sure to take a chunk out of the tourism sector in Egypt as tourists from Canada and the United States will now be able to see pyramidal ruins with a much shorter flight than the one to Egypt.
However, this bad news was offset by the more positive update that the Egyptian road show garnered a lot of publicity as it rolled into Oman last weekend. The Egyptian road show is a traveling caravan of sorts, organized and funded by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism. It is the job of the road show to drum up interest in Egypt and in doing so to increase tourism to the country. The publicity that they got in Oman was well above expected levels and indeed promises to expose many new people to the prospect of taking a vacation to nearby Egypt.
Do the good and bad of the Egyptian tourism industry offset each other? Only time will tell.
