Cairo – The annual conference of the International Congress and Conventions Association (ICCA) was held last week in Cairo. At the meeting, the idea of turning Egypt into a centre for events tourism was promoted.
Egypt is moving forward in this respect and, according to the ICCA’s rating, Cairo currently ranks 100th in the list of cities that attract the most conferences in the world. “We are making progress at full tilt in the field of conference tourism,” said the vice-president of Egyptian Tourism Association (ETA), Sami Mahmud. In his assessment, it is a good position, as the list involves 1,000 cities worldwide.
Mahmud added that events tourism is very profitable, and with its development, it may become an alternative source of employment and income in the country. “According to the ICCA, Dubai, the top-ranking city in the Middle East, attracted over 150 conferences in 2009, whereas in Cairo we only had 35,” he stated.
The Egyptian government is paying attention to this type of tourism, which attracts a large number of sponsors interested in promoting conferences in the fields of science, culture, economy, art festivals etc.
“Throughout the last decade, infrastructure for conference tourism was well developed in Egypt. In the early 1990s, the country only had the International Conference and Exhibition Centre, a.k.a. Palace of Congresses, but many other centres have been built at the leading tourist destinations,” said Miranda Iannou, president of the ICCA’s Mediterranean sector.
Built in 1989, the Palace of Congresses, located in Nasr City, in eastern Cairo, was erected in cooperation with the Chinese government. Egypt also has the Sharm El Sheikh conference palace. In the city of Alexandria, the Library of Alexandria has conference rooms with capacity for 3,000, and Luxor also houses a large conference hall.
“The construction of huge conference rooms in several parts of Egypt also causes concern over the improvement of the quality of roads, transport and communication, such as telephone, fax and the Internet. These are of key importance to the development of events tourism,” said Alaa Ezz, the secretary general of the Union of Egyptia chambers of Tourism.
According to Mahmud, there are plans for building two new conference rooms in the near future. One should be located in the Hurghada resort, on the Red Sea, and the other in the city of Aswan, in the South of Egypt. “Thus, all of our large tourist centres will be part of a network of large, modern, comfortable and well-equipped conference halls, capable of receiving any event, far from the inconveniencies of large capital cities, and close to resorts, leisure centres and historical tourist spots,” said the executive.
The idea of promoting large events far from the uproar of big cities is shared by Atef Moawad, who owns an agency that specializes in organizing conferences in Egypt. “As an events organizer, I prefer tourist spots farther removed from the large centres, because they are calmer and the access is easier. Commuting is faster, and this saves lots of time for participants,” he said. “We must also consider that participants always set one day aside for shopping and some leisure, and this is why tourist centres have great advantages,” he added.
Miranda Iannou stated, however, that the number of companies specializing in conference organization in Egypt is still very limited. “This is a problem facing the development of this genre of tourism. The number of companies in the field here does not exceed six or seven, which is low compared with other countries with capacities similar to Egypt’s,” he asserted.
For that reason, the conference of the ICCA advised fro cooperation between its member countries in order to exchange experiences in the field, and highlighted the importance of exchange with large countries, such as the United States, Germany and Italy.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
