Attacks keep millions away from famed Egypt tourist sites
Date
2/10/2016 3:03:16 AM
(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Cairo-
Said Ramadan has lost count of how much he's borrowed just to stay afloat while other vendors at Giza's pyramids have already lost hope as jihadist
attacks bring Egypt's tourist
industry to its knees.
"I have no money to buy clothes for my children ... I hardly make any money as so few tourists are coming" Ramadan 42 said at his dilapidated one-storey brick house near the world heritage site. Since Egypt's then
chief and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi in 2013 a deadly insurgency led by the Islamic State jihadist group has kept away millions of tourists. Tourism in Egypt was dealt a body blow when a Russian airliner blew up mid-air over the Sinai Peninsula on October 31 killing all 224 people on board mostly Russian tourists. The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group claimed it downed the jet with a bomb on board. Tourist arrivals already dwindling since the turmoil triggered by the 2011 ouster of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak plummeted after the plane crash. The thousands of foreigners who used to jostle shoulder-to-shoulder while passing through the metal detectors of the famed pyramids and Great Sphinx complex each day have simply vanished. Now visitors to the more than 4600-year-old monuments are mostly Egyptian college students or families from outside Cairo. On a rocky path leading to the pyramids vendors display miniature statues depicting Egypt's pharaonic era but sales are rare. Dozens of camel handlers stand dejected for hours on end as visitors snapping pictures standing next to them turn down rides across the scenic desert plateau. "There was a time when I made a thousand (Egyptian) pounds ($125) a day. Now I'm lucky if I earn a hundred" said Ibrahim as an Egyptian couple photographed his camel. - Tight security - Dozens of men speaking fluent English Italian or Russian canter up and down the plateau on horseback offering cheap rides but with barely any takers. Buses which previously ferried about 50 tourists at a time now drive in with just five or six visitors. Many tourist hotels near the pyramids which boasted 100-percent occupancy before the 2011 uprising are all but empty.