The tourism sector has been hit the hardest after the revolution, especially in Aswan—a southern city to the east of the Nile— where 12% of population works in the failing industry.
The tourism sector has been hit the hardest after the revolution, especially in Aswan—a southern city to the east of the Nile— where 12% of population works in the failing industry.
The number of the tourists who visited Aswan in 2010 amounted to one million, which decreased to merely 250,000 in 2011 after the revolution’s outbreak. Of the three million tourists who visited Egypt during the first six months of 2012, only 150,000 visited Aswan, according to the statistics of the Tour Guide Syndicate (TGS) in Aswan.
Muhammad Abdullah, also known as Abu Hisham, is a worker at a tourism bazaar in Aswan and recalls a different life before the revolution.
Mr. Abdullah, could you please describe your workday?
I work as a peddler in the touristic Saad Zaghloul Street, which is full of bazaars. We work from morning until sunset, and then to 10 p.m. sharp. During this time, tourists go out of their hotels and boats to stroll through the tourist market.
I approach customers and offer them what is sold in the bazaar, but at a cheaper price. Before the revolution, we used to sell goods of no less than L.E. 1000-2000, (US $164 – $328) with a profit of up to 200%. Today, we can’t pay the rent and our sales during last year didn’t exceed what we used to sell in a month before the revolution.
What are the risks you are exposed to at work?
Risks were represented in the reports made by tourism police, but we didn’t care because they amounted to L.E. 300 (US $49), which we used to earn from only one customer.
Does your work as a peddler adversely affect tourism, as claimed by the media?
On the contrary, foreign customers get very happy when we offer them goods in streets, because this doesn’t exist in any other country.
How has the revolution affected your business?
Previously, Aswan had more than a million tourism shops, and they all did good business. Today, more than half of them have closed. Many shop owners who used to earn L.E. 1000 a day (US $164) now work in a bakery or as a painting assistant. I worked as a construction worker several times but I stopped because I’m not used to such a profession. Friends of mine have left the country and haven’t returned yet because of bad economic conditions. Some goods now remain in their places for months.
Why haven’t workers united to establish an independent association or syndicate to defend their rights?
Tourism is an incoherent profession; every worker seeks to attract as many customers as he can. Creating a bond among workers is therefore difficult. However, the Union of Bazaar Workers has recently started to face the monopoly of major tourism companies, which have prevented tourists from going to the tourism market street where we work, in preparation of taking them to the new tourist market known as ‘Khan Younis’. There, the price of each meter is L.E. 15,000 ($2,459), an amount unaffordable to traders.
What are your demands?
We demand that the government fights the major tourism companies’ monopoly of tourism markets, activates the tour guide law, which prevents tour guides from intervening in the sales process, and provides security to eliminate incidents of theft.
