Home
to the world's most ancient sites and famous
monuments, including the Giza Pyramids, the
Great Sphinx, the Nile and Red Sea coral
reefs, and Sharm El Sheik resort, as well as
the grand Khan El Khalily market, Egypt
stands as one of the African continent's top
travel draws.
Egypt to
Host ATA 34th Annual Congress, May
2009
The Egyptian Tourism
Ministry, in cooperation with the Egyptian
Tourist Authority, will host the Africa
Travel Association's 34th Annual Congress in
Cairo, May 17-22, 2009.
A joint announcement
was made by Hon. Zoheir Garranah, Egyptian
Tourism Minister, and Edward Bergman,
ATA Executive Directorat "It is with great
pride that we are now working with ATA to
welcome the world to Egypt for ATA's Annual
Congress," said Minister Garranah. "We look
forward to welcoming the world to our
country."
Connecting Destination
AfricaUnder the above banner, ATA's hallmark
event will be attended by African tourism
ministers, national tourism board directors,
private sector leaders, travel agents, tour
operators, heads of nongovernmental
organizations, scholars, and members of the
media, who will discuss together challenges
related to global tourism promotion to
Africa.
"ATA is looking forward
to engaging with the world's leading travel
specialists to bring the world to Africa,"
Bergman said. "By combining Egypt's unique
capacity to achieve record numbers in tourist
arrivals with ATA's ability to bring diverse
industry leaders together to shape Africa's
tourism agenda, this meeting holds tremendous
promise for change in the industry and the
global marketplace."
Active in ATA since
1983ATA held its eighth congress in Cairo;
its 16th was held in 1991. Today, tourism is
the largest source of foreign currency
revenue in Egypt and authorities plan to
welcome 16 million tourism arrivals by
2014.
"We anticipate
that the 2009 Congress will not only help
Egypt reach its target, but it will also help
the country generate even more tourism
growth from the U.S. and Africa, as well as
from Asia and the Caribbean" said
Bergman.
The Congress, to
be held at the Cairo International Conference
Center (CICC), will run for five days,
engaging participants in working discussions
on a range of topics, such as intra-African
industry cooperation, infrastructure
development and investment opportunities.
Roundtables for ministers, suppliers, travel
agents and tour operators, alongside special
networking events, a marketplace expo, and
ATA Young Professionals events, will also be
held. For the first time, ATA will also
organize networking opportunities for
Africans living in the Diaspora as part of
its new Africa Diaspora
Initiative.
"Egypt also stands as
an example for other African destinations to
turn to, especially given that foreign and
Egyptian investments helped drive the tourism
boom by helping the government target coast
regions and build supportive tourism
infrastructure, including accommodation stock
and better airport services. In fact, ATA
delegates will arrive in Egypt's newly opened
international airport," said
Bergman.
Host Country and Pre
Post Tours
Egypt will organize a
Host Country Day for delegates, who will have
the opportunity to explore some of these
tourism spots, as well as many more. Pre and
post-country tours will also be
offered.
To prepare for the
event, ATA sent a delegation to Egypt in
August for a site inspection. The team met
Hon. Zoheir Garranah, Minister of Tourism,
Mr. Amr El Ezabi, Chairman of the Egyptian
Tourist Authority (ETA), as well as Mr. Riad
Kabil, Secretary General of the Egyptian
Travel Agents Association, a 1,600-member
association.
The ATA delegation also
met Captain Tawfik Assy, Chair of Egyptair
Holding Company, and Mr. Ashraf Osman,
EGYPTAIR's General Manager of Sales to
introduce the association and the congress.
of the event. For more information on Egypt,
visit the Egyptian Tourist Authority (ETA)
website at www.egypt.travel.
Pharaohs Lure
Tourists
Story and photos by
Habeeb Salloum
From atop the Cairo
Tower, the mighty Nile appears to be
overwhelmed by the edging luxury hotels and
towering apartment buildings. Beyond, the
city with its crowded streets, literally
infested with humanity, spreads out to the
horizon. In between the avenues with their
mass of darting autos, one sees a thousand
minarets of new and historic mosques,
peppered with a number of Coptic-Christian
basilicas.
Cairo a Mixture of
East-WestIt appears to be an inviting city to
explore - a mixture of eastern exoticism and
Western sophistication.
Yet, this is not what
the millions of people traveling to Egypt
want to see. If one turns atop the Tower to
the other side, in the distance, a visitor
glimpses the outline of the Great Pyramids.
Located on a desert plateau on the western
edge of the city, they are the magnets that
draw these tourists. It is as if the pharaohs
of Ancient Egypt are still caring for their
descendants. Of the millions of tourists who
travel to Egypt, the vast majority come to
view the monumental vestiges left by one of
the greatest civilizations the world has ever
known.
Europeans and North
Americans, traveling in groups, usually stop
in Cairo, the cultural capital of the Arab
world, but never in reality see Africa's
largest city, milling with some 15 million
inhabitants. They spend one or two days
visiting the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities
and the Great Pyramids, then are whisked
southward to see the other eye-bulging works
of the ancient Egyptians around Luxor and
Aswan. Pyramids and Sphinx, World's Enduring
Monuments Perhaps the tour operators have a
point when they steer their herds toward
these world renowned monuments. Continued.By
any standard, the pyramids - the only one of
the 'Seven Wonders of the World' which still
exist - are an unbelievable accomplishment by
ancient man. It is said that no traveler who
has viewed them for the first time, has not
gasped in awe, overwhelmed by their majesty.
With their guardian, the Sphinx, they stand
on a desert plateau some 15 km (9.3 mi) from
the heart of Cairo. Since the days of ancient
Greece and continuing to modern times, they
have been visited, written about, explored
and, in this century, have become a part of
world mythology.
Called the Giza
Pyramids to distinguish them from the other
108 pyramids in the country, they are
approached by a wide-straight road built in
the 19th century by the Empress
Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III. She
came during the inauguration of the Suez
Canal and in order to see the pyramids, the
empress constructed this avenue called
Al-Ahram - in Arabic meaning 'the
pyramids'.
Giza Pyramids of
Cheops, Chephren and Mykerinos
In the early 1960s,
when I first visited the pyramids, this road
was mostly edged by desert. Today, it is one
of Cairo's major and longest streets and, on
both sides, a forest of buildings cover every
inch of space to the very edge of these
venerable monuments. Standing immutably
majestic, the Giza Pyramids of Cheops,
Chephren and Mykerinos, the most famous of
all the attractions in Egypt, have watched
humans come and go for untold centuries. The
largest and oldest of these is the Great
Pyramid of Cheops, erected about 2590 B.C.
Its base covers 6 ha (13 ac) and it is
estimated to contain 3 million separate
blocks of stones, averaging 2 1/2 tons
each.
Once these pyramids and
others played a vital role in the lives of
Egypt's kings and peasants. Today, for many,
they are the trademark of lasting power,
drawing, from across the globe, tourists and
those who dabble in magic and the
extraterrestrial. Watching haughtily over the
pyramids is the nearby famous Sphinx, carved
out of solid natural rock by Chephren the son
of Cheops, the builder of the second pyramid.
He had this huge statue sculptured from soft
limestone with a lion's body, and a god's
face - believed to be his own. For over 45
centuries, it has defied time, witnessing all
the morning suns civilized man has seen.
Carved in the midst of temples, which are in
the process of being excavated, this half man
half beast statue has acquired, through the
centuries, an air of mystery and romance. The
magnificence of the pyramids and the Sphinx
are superbly portrayed in the 'Sound and
Light' shows, presented nightly. After sunset
throughout the year, on different nights, in
Arabic, English, French and German, these
shows, the finest of their kind presented
anywhere, draw droves of tourists. They add
much to the appreciation of the Giza
phaorononic monuments and their
history.
Egyptian Museum of
Antiquities
On the other hand, more
thrilling to many tourists is the Egyptian
Museum of Antiquities, housing some 100
thousand exhibits. It contains a very rich
store of remains from the Ancient Egyptian
civilizations, including the 4000 piece
treasure found in Tutankhamen's tomb. Few
museums in the world can even come close to
its impressive exhibits. This huge
classical-style museum was built in 1853 by
Auguste Mariette, the great pioneer
archaeologist, but its collection has only
occupied the building since 1902. Days are
needed to truly appreciate the exhibits, not
the half or one day tours allotted most
visitors.
However, the museum has
long become too small for its ever-increasing
collections and a modern and larger one is in
the works. Nevertheless, this too will likely
be not spacious enough after it is completed.
The untold thousands of pieces of one of the
oldest and grandest civilizations on earth
can easily fill half a dozen
museums.
After this storehouse
of priceless ancient treasures, one becomes
eager to explore the boundless pharaonic
monuments around Luxor and Aswan where, it is
said, half of the world's important ruins are
to be found. The Egyptian Museum of
Antiquities in Cairo is the best door through
which tourists can enter into this heart of
the pharaonic history.
