Is Egyptian tourism affected by the suspension of British flights?

Ahmed Hassan - Cairo

Official anger, public concern and multiple questions The highlight of British Airways' surprise move Saturday was to suspend its flights to Cairo for a week for security reasons, especially with the suffering experienced by Egyptian tourism for years.

The British Airways announcement followed a similar announcement from its German counterpart, but with the suspension of flights for one day only. The British Foreign Office also warned its nationals heading to Egypt of "the increased risk of a terrorist act targeting aviation."

In the first comment from Cairo, Air Minister Younis El Masri told British Ambassador to Egypt Geoffrey Adams his displeasure with the decision without returning to his country.

A statement by the Ministry of Aviation that the British ambassador to apologize to the Minister of Aviation not to inform the Egyptian authorities before the issuance of the resolution, and stressed that it is not related to security measures for Egyptian airports.

The British embassy was unable to comment on the Egyptian statement, while Reuters quoted three unnamed security sources as saying the British Airways decision came after security checks were conducted at Cairo airport on Wednesday and Thursday.

The total number of reviews conducted by the British side of a number of Egyptian airports since July 2017 and so far six reviews, a review every six months.

According to media estimates, Egypt spent more than $ 60 million to develop the airport security system, which included the purchase of the latest detection devices, especially three-dimensional detectors for passengers and bags.

Differentiated estimates

Tourism expert estimates on the repercussions of the British and German decisions on tourism in Egypt vary. A tourist expert said that the decision is negative on the image of Egypt abroad, while another felt that it will not affect the recovery of tourism in light of the current stability.

For his part, the former president of the Chamber of Tourism facilities in Egypt, Wajdi Kurdani that the decision is negative and harmful to Egypt and harm the reputation, calling on his country's authorities to move to avoid the negative effects.

But he told Al Jazeera Net that the British decision - despite its negativity - is not the degree of great concern and impact on Egyptian tourism, such as the Russian decision to suspend flights after the bombing of one of its aircraft.

The Russian plane crashed in October 2015 as it headed from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, killing its crew and all 224 passengers in an incident sponsored by the Islamic state in the Sinai, but the investigation has not yet announced official results.

The incident has greatly hurt the Egyptian tourism sector, and Russia and Britain are still in a position to stop flights to Sharm el-Sheikh.

Tension in the Gulf

In his interpretation of the British decision, al-Kurdani pointed out that it may be due to the intention of the British government to carry out (not clarified) the Strait of Hormuz in response to the arrest of oil tankers belonging to it.

Tensions are mounting in the Gulf over Iran's detention of a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on the grounds that it does not observe international maritime laws, unlike the military buildup between the United States and Saudi Arabia on the one hand and Iran on the other.

Observers ruled out a link between the suspension of British flights to Cairo and the volatile situation in the Gulf, as they saw it was the first to suspend those flights in areas of conflict relatively far from Cairo.

Al-Kurdani predicted that British aviation would also be affected by the decision to suspend. He said that Egypt has not stopped its flights between Cairo and London, so that tourists or passengers coming to Egypt via other airlines, especially Egypt, will travel.

Following the British decision, the Egyptian Ministry of Civil Aviation announced increased capacity and additional flights to London to facilitate passenger transport during this period.

Vague without effect

Tourism expert Ali Ghoneim, a member of the Egyptian Federation of Tourist Chambers, said that the British decision is vague without reasons, pointing out that Egyptian tourism has passed the stage of negative mental image in the countries of the world.

Ghoneim stressed that what he described as the tourist boom that is currently taking place in the country in conjunction with the current security and political stability, stands in the way of any decisions taken by Britain or others against Egypt.

He also considered the tourist expert in his speech to Al Jazeera Net that the decision to suspend flights without negative repercussions on tourism.

According to a government report issued earlier this month, the European countries topped the tourism in Egypt in 2018, about seven million tourists, followed by Arab countries by about three million tourists, and Asian by about 670 thousand tourists, the Americans about 456 thousand.

According to a report by the Central Bank of Egypt in April, Egypt's revenues from tourism during the first half of the current fiscal year amounted to 6.8 billion dollars, compared with 4.9 billion dollars during the same period last fiscal year.

Egypt relies on tourism as one of the sources of hard currency, and seeks to promote it after the decline in revenues following the political and security turmoil experienced by the country since the revolution of January 2011.

In its warning bulletin, the British Foreign Office said that 415,000 Britons visited Egypt in 2018. Germany topped the list of tourists to Egypt by 1.7 million last year, according to a previous Egyptian government report.

Egypt aims to increase visitor numbers to 12 million this year compared with 10.8 million last year.