EGYPT is launching a TV advertising campaign this month in an attempt to improve its reputation in the UK market following the Luxor massacre in November 1997.
The adverts, based on the slogan Welcome to the Se7enth Millennium, run to the end of April. Images, of Aswan, Nile cruising, diving and the sphinx, also feature the number seven.
Consumer press advertising will run alongside the TV campaign and will be repeated later in the year.
Egyptian State Tourist Office director Samia Khafaga said:”We want to remind people that Egypt is entering its seventh millennium in 2000.”
“We are getting a lot of inquiries for the millennium. The Luxor event is being forgotten and visitor numbers from the UK are increasing, but they are still down on two years ago and that is what we want to correct,” she added.
UK operators such as Thomson and British Airways Holidays have since relaunched their programmes to Egypt as memories of the massacre fade.
Egyptian Travel Agents Association chairman Elhamy Elzayat said just over 300,000 Britons visited Egypt last year.
“That is a big achievement,” he said.
“People came back faster than we anticipated, but numbers are still down. We consider 400,000 a year from the UK to be good.
“We are also not getting the conferences and incentives from the UK, but it will happen. Prices are starting to go up, which makes it more viable for investors.”
Elzayat added that Germany, which used to be the number one market with 500,000 tourists a year, is also down. Italy is the now the largest market, sending 384,000 people last year.