Running head: TOURISM ISSUE FACED BY EGYPT 1

TOURISM ISSUE FACED BY EGYPT

GHZN 3073 TOURISM GEOGRAPGHY GROUP B (A171)

GROUP PROJECT

UNIVERSITY UTARA MALAYSIA

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1.0 Introduction

Seven wonders of the world would flash across our mind whenever we mentioned about the

Arab Republic of Egypt. The absolute location of Egypt is 26.8206° N, 30.8025° E and the

Eastern European time zone (UTC+ 02:00) is currently being used in the country. The Egyptian

climate is quite extreme where the days are scorching and the nights are cool and foggy. Muslim

is the major religion in Egypt which is approximately 90% with a small minority of 10% is

Christian. Arabic is the most spoken language among the Egyptian with English and French also

ordinarily spoken among the educated classes.

1.1 History of Egypt

Egypt became an independent state in 1831, after gaining its sovereignty from Turkey. Egypt

country has a long history of civilization in the last 6,000 years. The greatness of Egyptian

civilization, has been on the map of world civilization, since it was old began in 3200 BC and

has passed through five periods of civilization history. The first period of civilization is

Pharaonic. It took place at about 3200 to 332 BC, passed through 30 dynasties. Second period is

Greece, from 332 to 30 BC. Then, followed by Roman, from 30 BC to 642 AD. Then, Islam,

from 642 M to 1914 AD, passes through some of the dynasties, and the last one is Modern Egypt

which is from 1914 AD until now.

1.2 Geography of Egypt

Egypt is a country located in Africa that between North Africa and Southwest Asia along the

Mediterranean and Red Seas. Egypt borders Libya to the west, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the

northeast, and Sudan to the south. The longitude of Egypt is 31.1711E and latitude 28.8013N.

There are some neighbor countries that include Greece, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and

Cyprus nearby Egypt. Egypt has an area of 1,001,449 square kilometers. Egypt is the 30th largest
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nation in the world that covers 995,450 square kilometers of land and 6,000 square kilometers of

water. The highest point was Mount Catherine at 2629m and the lowest point at Qattara

Depression at -133m. The capital city was Cairo. The population of Egypt is 83,688,164 (2012)

and the nation has a density of 84 people per square kilometer.

1.3 Tourism trend in Egypt

[World Bank Group (n.d) ]

The results above was strong growth for Egyptian tourism from year 1995 to 2010 , that is the

number of visitor increase to 14 million then dropped dramatically as following the political

issue which is the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in year 2011. While people are forgetfulness, the

arrival of tourists are rising in year 2012 but continued dropped because of the removal of

Mohamed Morsi as president in year 2013. According to the WTTC in year 2014, domestic

travel spending was responsible for 64.1% of all direct travel. Even though the statistic showing

the arrival of tourist keep dropping from year 2010, the overall situation of the tourism market

still in good condition.

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1.4 The main attraction in Egypt

a) Pyramids of Giza

This monument tomb was built about 4500 years ago. The Pharaoh Khufu began the first

pyramid project at 2550 B.C. and takes about 20 years to complete.. It is an amazing site for

history lover and architectural lover. The solar boat museum is one of the hot point that just

alongside the Great Pyramid, which show the reconstructed ‘solar boat that buried with the

pharaoh for use on daily journey. Then the Sphinx have a show that tells the visitors the story

of Giza. This place is very attractive till the photographer rather take the risk of being jailed

to climb up and take the photo.

b) Aswan

Egypt's most tranquil town is Aswan, is located above of the Nile River. It is Egypt ‘s

strategic gateway since antiquity. It contains significant archaeological sites like the Philae

temple complex, on Agilkia Island near the landmark Aswan Dam. Philae’s ruins include the

columned Temple of Isis, dating to the 4th century B.C. Downriver, Elephantine Island holds

the Temple of Khnum, from the Third Dynasty. The Aswan botanical garden is also a place

to go, the place is discovered as a garden since year 1898. The Monastery of St Simeon is

built in 7th century and rebuilt in 10th century and hope to converting Nubians to Christianity.

c) Qattara Depression

The Qattara Depression is a depression located along north west of Egypt and part of the

Western Desert. It contains the lowest point of Africa. It is below sea level and covered with

salt pans, sand dunes and salt marshes. As you travel through the Qattara Depression you will

see beautiful rock formations that differ in size and shape, as well as saline marshes. This

place also is the last known location which cheetah can be found in Egypt.
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2.0 Problem faced by Egypt in Tourism Sector

2.1 Economic Woes

In Egyptian economy, the main challenge that Egyptian faced is achieving sustainable growth.

Sustainable growth is the realistically attainable growth that can maintain without running into

problems. Sustainable growth needs economic measures alongside policies to control population

growth and focus on population quality. (Daily news egypt. September 19, 2016). Egypt faced

the problem of overpopulation in the country caused lack of job opportunity. A soaring

unemployment rate in the country become serious for example the people in Egypt make a

revolution in year 2011 and it cause the decrease of tourist that willing to come because they

prefer a safety place to travel. Poverty in Egypt cause the problem of inflation and food shortages

that harmed the general population. Egypt also faced the problem that lack of foreign currency

resources and administrative corruption lead to tourist hard to do transaction with them.

Tourism have bring a lot of benefits to the country. Tourist that visited to Egypt and they spent

money while travel had increasing the income of the country which mean tourism contributes a

huge amount of money and employment to economy. [ Arabcin.net. The importance of tourism

to the Egyptian economy. ] Egypt should attract more foreign direct investment and provide

foreign currency to investors with guarantees for restoring foreign currency in the Egyptian

market. By adjusting exchange market, Egypt needs to control the inflation of the economy year-

to-year and develop job opportunity to citizen of Egypt to reduce the problem of unemployment.

The increasing of the income of citizen and the ability of their purchasing had help to improve

the economy of the country. (Daily news Egypt, September 19, 2016. What are the challenges

facing the egyption economy in the eyes of dealers?)

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2.2 Government Policy

The poor leadership, mismanagement, administrative corruption and political unrest of

government resulting in the triple crime rate. In Egypt, the law itself is the enemy of woman

rights because of the religious and conservative concepts. The safety of female is insecure, the

fear sexual violence against women because there is always the potential for unwanted attention

from men. According to a report by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights titled “Harassment:

The Social Cancer,” 98 percent of foreign female visitors to Egypt and 83 percent of Egyptian

women experienced some degree of sexual harassment, and 62 percent of Egyptian men admitted

to harassing women, both foreign and local. The unsafe environment cause the female tourist

refuse to visit Egypt and the arrival of tourist affected. They also need to getting straight on the

Women Protection Order in order to confirm the security of female tourist or else the problem

will never settle.

The government is taking short-term and long-term action to enhance the country’s

competitiveness in tourism. They have done a set of objectives that seek to ensure an appropriate

safety and security in the country. By way of example, in response to an identified gap in tourism

human resources development, The Ministry of Tourism is collaborating with The Egyptian

Tourism Federation (ETF) and industry stakeholders to develop training programs to improve the

skills of all workers in the tourism industry, including middle and upper management, to develop

the employment opportunities and social welfare through tourism industry. The government have

to solve the problem by redistributed the wealth to avoid upper class control everything and the

lower class always faced the lack of money and food. When the problem can be reduce, the

country will back to peace and the tourism trend will recover in short.
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2.3 Environment

Air pollution is one of the serious environmental issues happened in Egypt. In downtown Cairo,

the air quality is really bad. Cairo has a very poor factor because it accept a lack of rain every

year and the most notable sources of the dust and small particles are from transportation, industry

and open-air waste-burning. Another significant source is also the wind blown from arid areas

around Egypt which is Western Desert. [Daily News Egypt. (November 1, 2009)] In relation to

the environment, strengthening ecological tourism facilities, raising awareness of the need to

reduce pollution, upgrade cleanliness standards, and enforcing environmental regulations, are

some of the priority actions taken by the Ministry of Tourism to enhance the competitiveness of

the tourism sector. The Ministry of Tourism is currently co-operating with the Ministry of

Environment to implement environmental laws and regulations for all tourist facilities and

activities that carry on the tourist site.

Egypt is one of the countries in the North African region with a hot climate. It is surrounded by

barren desert. Most of the people in Egypt depends on the Neil river, which is regarded as the

longest river in the world. Unfortunately, the quality of the river has been threatened by

industrial wastewater, oil pollution, municipal wastewater, agricultural drainage, and including

the natural cyanotoxins. It caused water pollution. A report has been made by Egyptian Initiative

for Personal Rights (EIPR), stated that the quantity of fresh water and the water’s quality is in

decline across Egypt. It also added that sewage loaded with harmful organic and chemical

materials as well as minerals and heavy metals and agricultural drainage loaded with insecticides

are all sources of water pollution. The report recommended to adopt more efficient solutions to

the pollution problem such as devising low-cost systems to treat domestic drainage on a local

level then re-use it for irrigation. [Rana Muhammad Taha. Daily News Egypt. (Jun 2, 2013)]
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Egypt faced garbage problem since in the 1930s and 1940s till today. When walking along the

streets of Cairo and Alexandria, nobody can miss the piles of trash on almost every street corner,

even in upscale districts. Usually the tourist prefers to travel to the place that is environmental

clean. In 2003, the government contracted foreign companies to take charge of the capital’s

garbage collection. Refuse from each building was collected by doormen and put in large bins in

front of the building to be picked up by specially equipped garbage trucks. [Farah Al Akkad. Al-

Ahram Weekly] There seems to be no solution to the garbage problem, which has become a

normal part of Egyptian daily life. Nowadays, slum tourism is available for some tourist to

experience themselves in a different environment. They wish to know more about the local lower

class’s life surrounded by garbage and pollution.

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3.0 Conclusion

Ancient Egypt is an extraordinary place with many amazing sights. The Ancient Egypt

civilization was one of the strongest civilizations but it also hit by crisis. It can be found a few

similarities and differences of Ancient Egypt and modern-day people in their everyday lifestyles.

It can see in their religion, government, social class, writing, and their job specializations.

Egyptian had no big corporations like we work today but much simpler jobs in category of their

job specialization. Simpler jobs that they worked such as artisans that had skilled to build

monuments and city walls, some of them also worked as soldiers to defend their own community,

some of them also worked as entrepreneurs. Some of them also worked as singers, dancers and

storytellers. They worked as these jobs in their society because they worked for a king and they

make some self-income and profits from their king. In other hand, the similarities of their

civilization and ours is all the jobs that listed above are the same what we have today, but we did

not work under our king but under bosses of individual corporations.

Based on a democratic solution with fully functioning democratic institutions that protect all

citizens of Egypt to build a prosperous future of Egypt together. For example, persons that most

need belonging was minorities and women, their rights like the right to peaceful protest. In

addition, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms, especially assembly and

expression, religion or belief, as well as the right of fair trial are need fully respected. These

rights should be guaranteed by the rule of law and they should fully protected empowered

civilian by government of Egypt. In all, all we can said is without the Egyptians, we would not

be the people who we are today. Whether in internal or external, the big amount of knowledge in

us that are provided from ancient Egyptian era has shaped our modern world.
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http://tourism.egypt.com/index.php/articles/ArticleCategorySpecial/2797