Tourism Management in Egypt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Tourism Management in Egypt - Essay Example While France is ranked as the 1st with over 81 million tourists visiting the country every year, and Mexico is ranked as 10th attracting 22 million tourists a year, Egypt is attracting only 8 million tourists. These statistics reflect the fact that Egypt is not successful in manipulating all the factors that may enable the country to be one of the top tourism destinations in the world. The attitude of low class Egyptians towards tourists, the destruction of the environment, and the lack of effective publicity campaigns are the main problems, which hider the development of the tourism sector in Egypt, requiring extensive efforts to be done from the government in order to revive this sector. The first problem that the tourism sector in Egypt faces is the attitude of the low class citizens towards tourists. This sort of problem can be observed in almost any place where tourists exist in Egypt. Harassment is the clearest annoyance directed towards tourists by many Egyptians. For example, tourists are always victims of over pricing by many shop owners and vendors in tourist places. Also, beggars harass tourists wherever they go in a manner that annoys those tourists severely. Accordingly, those harassed tourists may develop a negative feeling towards Egypt, making it hard to convince them to revisit Egypt. Actually, there are many researches, which show that the impression a tourist develops about a certain place affects his decision for visiting this same place in the future. In a research that was conducted in the small village of Bighodi in Uganda about the reason behind the increase in the number of tourists visiting this village, it was discovered that the residents of this village have a positive attitude towards tourists (Lepp). This attitude results from their awareness that tourism increases the income of the village, improves agricultural markets, and helps in community development. This research shows the strong effect of the residents' attitude in increa sing or decreasing the number of tourists visiting a specific place. Although Bighodi is a small village in a poor country that lacks sources and services that are essential for any touristic country to have, yet the welcoming attitude of the citizens of Bighodi succeeds in attracting tourists from different places in the world. Thus, the case of the Bighodi village gives a clear indication about the effect of people’s behavior towards tourists on the revival of the tourism sector in a given place. Consequently, it is hard to revive the tourism sector in Egypt without changing the bad behavior of some Egyptians towards tourists. The main solution for this problem of the bad attitude towards tourists in Egypt is to develop awareness among Egyptians about the importance of tourism for the economy of the country. Again, the Egyptian government may take guidance in the experience of the village of Bighodi. The residents of Bighodi were not taught how to treat tourists and how to be welcoming to them, but their good attitude comes out of their awareness of the importance of tourism to their village. For example, the Egyptian government should make it clear for the people that the tourism industry in the country forms almost 15% of the national