Egypt tourism takes a hit from prophet protests

One of the world's largest cruise ships, its foreign passengers primed for onshore spending, was supposed to dock in Egypt this month. The port call, however, was scrapped because of security concerns surrounding Mideast protests against a film made in the U.S. that denounces Islam's holiest figure.
     
Once again, Egyptian tourism, an engine of the national economy and a flagship of the regional industry, has taken a hit. It was another setback for a business that had plummeted in parts of the Middle East and North Africa last year during the uprisings known as the Arab Spring, then moved toward recovery this year.
    
Egypt and other Arab nations undergoing turmoil rely heavily on the labor-intensive trade and see it as key to economic growth and social stability.
     
Tourism directly contributes a big chunk of gross domestic product to some of the countries that suffered economic fallout from last year's tumult, which came not long after the global financial crisis. Egypt, for example, generates 6.7 percent of GDP from travel and tourism and Tunisia is around the same level with 6.6 percent, with benefits to related businesses pushing the figures even higher, according to the London-based World Tourism and Travel Council. It is among industry groups that will assess the impact from the latest upheaval, though it is too early for a comprehensive estimate of losses.
     
In the multi-layered Middle East, a setback for tourism in one area can mean a windfall in another. During the Arab Spring, tourists, many of them Arabs, turned away from countries in crisis and traveled to more stable places like Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, said Sana Toukan, Middle East research manager for Euromonitor International, a market research group. The UAE also drew more Chinese visitors, according to Toukan.
     
The latest downturn followed demonstrations in Egypt against an online film that was produced by a U.S. citizen originally from Egypt and denigrates the Prophet Muhammad. They were part of a wider explosion of anger in Muslim countries. The unrest hit near the U.S. Embassy, far from the pyramids of Giza on Cairo's outskirts, and even farther from gated Red Sea resorts, cocoons for the beach-bound vacationer.
    
Yet the online or TV images of flames, barricades and whooping demonstrators were a killjoy for anyone planning a getaway, even though the protests have subsided in many places. Tour guides in Egypt say tourist bookings are mostly holding, but they worry about a drop-off early next year as people tend to plan several months ahead.
     
Tharwat Agami, head of the chamber of tourist agencies in Luxor, home to the Valley of the Kings tombs in southern Egypt, reported up to one-quarter of tourist cancellations through October. His own company guided 17 American tourists last week, half of the group's expected number.
     
Royal Caribbean International took no chances. One of its vessels, Mariner of the Seas, can carry more than 3,000 passengers. It left Italy, on Sept. 15  with regional tension still boiling over the film  and was to call at Alexandria on the northern Egypt Mediterranean coast three days later.
     
The company canceled the layover "in an abundance of caution," said Cynthia Martinez, director of global corporate communications at Miami-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
    
Cruise ships also stayed away during the turmoil that led to Mubarak's downfall. Usually, passengers board buses for a day's outing to Cairo, where the pyramids, the medieval citadel, the mummies of the Egyptian Museum and other treasures await. It's a windfall for guides, ticket vendors and souvenir shops.
     
Egyptian tourism revenues fell 30 percent to $9 billion in 2011, but the industry proved as resilient as it is vulnerable. It survived the killing of 62 people, mostly foreign tourists, by Islamic militants in a 1997 attack at Luxor that seemed aimed at weakening the government by stopping the flow of tourism revenue. The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaida pummeled tourism, as did 2005 bombings in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh.
    

AP