Ragan sits in his horse-ridden cab in the tourist marina of Luxor, overlooking the Nile, while dozens of boats and floating hotels, stacked next to each other, sit vacant and empty.
The violence experienced in Egypt during and after the break up of pro-Morsi sit-ins is killing the tourism industry in Luxor, which drivers like Ragab Gaderrab, 61, have always relied on.
Ragan sits in his horse-ridden cab in the tourist marina of Luxor, overlooking the Nile, while dozens of boats and floating hotels, stacked next to each other, sit vacant and empty.
The violence experienced in Egypt during and after the break up of pro-Morsi sit-ins is killing the tourism industry in Luxor, which drivers like Ragab Gaderrab, 61, have always relied on.
Thousands of tourism sector workers in the ancient city, 670 kilometers south of Cairo, have also suffered a similar fate because hotel occupancy rates of both floating and fixed accommodation facilities dropped to about 2 per cent, according to the city’s new governor Tarek Saadeddine.
More than half of Luxor residents work in tourism
“I am seriously considering the sale of my carriage horses because I no longer can afford their fodder,” says Ragab in desparation. “Even if I did, they would not bring much money because the prospective buyer would exploit the current situation and offer a low price,” he concludes.
Ragab’s ordeal is not isolated; 65-75 per cent of the approximately one million inhabitants of Luxor, a city used to welcoming millions of visitors every year to the many World Heritage sites nearby, primarily work in the tourism sector.
“The losses just from the last few days are estimated at millions of dollars. Tourist facilities worth one billion dollars have come to a standstill,” says Tharwat Agami, president of the Luxor Chamber of Tourism Companies.
Millions lost in a few days
Officials of the Luxor Governorate are looking for solutions to the suffocating economic situation. Among the solutions put forward by Governor Tarek Saadeddine is to establish industrial and agricultural projects in the city’s suburbs to accommodate thousands of workers who have been laid off from tourist companies and hotels since the inception of the January Revolution. The proposition, however, is subject to the same challenges faced by other sectors: the current turmoil in the country discourages Arab, foreign and Egyptian investors.
Tourist expert Mohamed Othman says it is the first time ever Luxor has experienced such low occupancy rates. “Even in the wake of the Luxor Massacre that targeted tourists at Deir el-Bahri in 1997, the occupancy rates were higher than now. Back then, it took the city a few months to fully recover from the ensuing crisis,” Othman told Correspondents.
Nearly 100 tourist boats have been put on sale in Luxor because their owners could no longer handle the losses incurred and dozens of hotels have been closed, though not officially. “We are exerting strenuous efforts to prevent proprietors of hotels and tourist boats from laying off more workers,” says Othman.
PR campaigns underminded by political violence
“The situation in Luxor though is catastrophic,” he continues. “We have appealed to foreign residents in the city to intervene and pressurize their countries not to carry out threats of dissuading tourists from visiting Egypt.”
Othman says Egyptian tourism stakeholders are working to keep up a PR drive in Europe, albeit it with limited results. “More than 16 tourist promotion campaigns were carried out by the Chamber of Tourism Companies across Europe between November and March, but to no avail,” says Othman.
Empty marina
A few meters off the tourist marina, disheartened Ahmad Haggagi stands in front of his Pharaonic artifact replica stall. “No sooner does a breakthrough become on sight than it is swept away by a political unrest, bringing the country back to the desperate square one situation,” Haggagi told Correspondents. No longer able to pay wages, Haggagi has already had to lay off two assistants. The question is how long can he survive without an upsurge in arrival numbers.
