After the fall of president Hosni Mubarak last year, the country's tourism industry has taken a hammering. What was a major contributor to the economy is now suffering a dearth of visitors. The sector is taking a long time to recover from the shock of conflict, writes Rebecca Bundhun...
CAIRO // Near the Pyramids in Giza, dozens of restless horses and camels stand in ramshackle shelters. An overpowering stench of manure hangs in the air and rubbish is scattered across the sand.
Sabr Agaya, 26, has made his living from hassling tourists into riding the animals around the ancient wonder for the past 15 years.
These days, the Egyptian, who never went to school and is illiterate, has to hassle harder than ever. The tourism industry in Cairo is still struggling more than one year on from the fall of the president Hosni Mubarak, as the country remains in political flux.
"I only know this work," Mr Agaya says.
He runs up to any taxi or bus carrying tourists that approaches the site and relentlessly tries to convince visitors to take a tour on horseback for 30 Egyptian pounds (Dh18.23bn) an hour or to at least sit atop an irritable camel for a photo. Mr Agaya's strategy seems to be the louder he shouts at the tourists, the more likely they might be to cave in.
Before the revolution, he would sell several tours a day, often to groups of more than 20 people, he says. Now he sells a couple of tours to a few tourists on a good day.
"If anybody does two tours in a day, he's a lucky man," says Mr Agaya. A few more tourists are trickling into the city compared with a year ago, but with many people still afraid to visit, it is significantly off the levels the tour guides were once accustomed to, he says.
Many of those who used to work around the Pyramids do not even bother to turn up any more because there is simply too little business to go round. They are just a fraction of Egypt's population who make their living off the tourism industry, with 12.6 per cent of all jobs generated by the sector. Egypt's tourism industry in 2010 accounted for 11.3 per cent of its economy.
Tourists reached a peak of 14.7 million that year, followed by a 33 per cent decline last year to 9.8 million, according to official statistics
"Cairo is slow at picking up," says Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, Egypt's minister of tourism.
"Average occupancy is increasing, but it's definitely slower than the Red Sea area and the resorts in Sinai. This is a society in crisis; that's why the transition is taking place. There are loss of jobs."
Revenues from tourism reached US$12.5 billion (Dh45.91bn) in 2010, declining to $8.8bn last year, the figures show. Foreign exchange countries are vital to Egypt, the world's largest importer of wheat. The country buys the commodity in dollars to produce subsidised bread to help feed its population of more than 80 million.
Shopkeepers in the Khan El Khalili souq in Cairo, another major tourist attraction, say they fully support political changes taking place in the country. Many of them participated in the protests themselves. But they are suffering financially.
Mamdouh Mahmoud, 27, a sales assistant at one of the small shops that sells an array of ornaments such as models of scarab beetles and Ancient Egyptian gods, says he did not work for the year after the revolution as customers, including Britons, Italians, and Germans, stayed away.
"I stayed at home. I had no job, no money," he says, adding he relied on his father to provide for him during that time.
With his wages dependent on commission, he now takes home about 20 (Dh12) to 30 Egyptian pounds a day compared with up to about 180 pounds about 18 months ago, Mr Mahmoud says.
"Some days we sell nothing at all."
There are hopes that things may improve soon after the presidential elections are held next month.
Otherwise, Amr Balir, 32, the shop manager of another souvenir stall in the souq, is considering heading to the resort town Sharm El Sheikh on the Red Sea, where the tourism industry is doing better.
He pays 3,000 pounds a month to rent his space in the souq and is losing money, he says. "Our business needs tourists. Egyptians don't want to buy these things." He says the revolution has had a far more devastating effect on his business than terrorist attacks that have taken place in the country in the past, including a bombing in the souq in 2009.
"In two days, the market got up again," he recalls.
Hotel occupancy levels across the city have improved but are still depressed. The Fairmont Nile City Hotel in Cairo has about 25 per cent fewer employees now compared with before the revolution, as it moved many of these workers to the company's hotels in the GCC, according to its management.
"[The revolution] moved the whole country, especially the city of Cairo downtown, backwards instead of forwards," says Frank Naboulsi, the general manager of the luxury Fairmont. "We've been struggling with this uncertainty and unrest to say the least, and now we're gaining momentum and we're trying to move forwards. We've had a meeting with some of the Japanese key tour operators and we're really looking forward to putting elections behind us and moving forwards as Egyptair commenced their direct flights from Cairo to Tokyo," he says.
Meanwhile, John Silvernail, 68, who was visiting Egypt for 15 days from the United States, was enjoying being able to view the treasures of Tutankhamun in the Egyptian Museum without crowds of large tour groups around him.
"There were some times when I debated whether I would do it," he says, adding he had wanted to visit Egypt since he was child.
"But I feel totally safe, no question," he says.
Many are hoping that sentiment will once again prevail for the Egyptian tourism industry as a whole.
twitter: Follow and share our breaking business news. Follow us
