Chennai: Christian pilgrimage is emerging as one of the important focus areas for the Egypt tourism, which is eyeing Chennai, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kochi to tap the market.
With 30 per cent growth in Indian tourist arrivals in 2017, Egypt Tourism is conducting roadshows to promote its cultural, Christian pilgrimage and MICE offering. “Christian pilgrimage is one of the important focus areas and for that we are focusing Mumbai, Bengaluru and specifically Kochi,” says Ismail Amer, Egyptian tourism counsellor, on the sidelines of their roadshow in Mumbai. Besides Mumbai, the roadshow will be held in cities like Bengaluru, Kochi and Ahmedabad.
According to the United Nations’ World Tourism Organisation, Egypt has been ranked as the second-fastest growing tourist destination of 2017. What attracts Indian travellers the most is that Egypt is a destination of great value in terms of visits to historical places and time spent on the beach. The Great Pyramid of Giza, which is one of the seven wonders of the world is the largest and oldest of the three pyramids in Giza. The Great Sand Sea - which includes a vast desert region of sand dunes - covers approximately 72,000 km square and is a great tourist attraction.
“Last year also we conducted roadshows in four cities. But this time we replaced Delhi with Kochi to target Christian pilgrimage traffic from Kochi,” justified Amer. He also made it clear that they are targeting Egypt as a stand-alone spiritual experience.
Egypt has everything to attract MICE traffic from India and they are working in this direction. Egypt Tourism is targeting IT, pharma and retail segments for MICE. With encouraging response from India, Egypt expects 1,30,000-1,40,000 tourists from India which has emerged as one of the best source markets for Egypt. Pyramids, Egyptian museum and old Cairo are among the very popular haunts of Indian tourists
