By: Nada Adel Sobhi

Cairo – Mubasher: Egypt’s minister of tourism Rania Al Mashat recently tackled issues such as tourism ethics, human relationships, how Egypt welcomes people from all over the world, highlighting several means that the ministry will be using to promote Egypt abroad.

Speaking at the RiseUp Summit in December, Al Mashat hinted at an upcoming programme and initiative that the ministry was set to announce in March 2019. She said that the project would focus on entrepreneurship in the tourism sector and that it was likely to be done in collaboration with RiseUp.

Asked why she was interested in speaking at RiseUp this year, the minister said she had always wanted to be part of the startup-focused event, indicating how RiseUp highlighted the importance of entrepreneurship while bringing various people together.

Al Mashat also revealed that her dream was that 25% of the population or 25 million Egyptians would work in the tourism sector.

Bolstering tourism in the coming period

As for promoting Egypt abroad, the Egyptian tourism minister said that the ministry’s contract with JWT had ended in September 2018, indicating that the new programme was going to focus on three aspects, namely people-to-people (P2P), sustainable tourism, and branding by destination.

As P2P, we want to show the world that the “Egyptian people are a people of pride, peace, positivity, and progress,” Al Mashat explained. “It’s the power of “P”, people above politics.”

When people create relationships, they encourage others to come, therefore boosting tourism, which is what we want to focus on in the coming period, Al Mashat told an audience of hundreds of attendees at the Greek Campus.

As for sustainable tourism, the minister explained that this aspect was heavily reliant on “people and places” or community development, which entails merging various communities in touristic places with development in these areas. We want to shed light on these places, Al Mashat stated, indicating that Egypt was not just Luxor and Aswan, but Marsa Alam, Siwa, Sahl Hasheesh and a host of other touristic spots and destinations.

On the same line, Al Mashat called on attendees to visit the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), which is set to open in 2020. Through the campaign called GEM 2020, Al Mashat said that the Ministry of Tourism wanted to “build anticipation” ahead of the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, which will bring together ancient civilisation with a modern design; therefore combining history with technology, past with future.

The Egyptian tourism minister further revealed that the ministry was working on a project with Egyptian universities to help build this anticipation for the Grand Egyptian Museum.