CAIRO: Despite the initial apprehension of local hotels and travel agencies following the April 7 attack on tourists in Cairo’s historic al-Azhar district, the effect on Egypt’s vital tourism industry has been slight. “So far, we haven’t felt a negative impact,” said Mohamed Fawzi, director of sales at the Egyptian branch of Paris-based hotelier Accor. Nevertheless, some in the industry believe that the lack of hotel cancellations is attributable entirely to the oft-repeated assertion that the attack was a one-off — an exception to an otherwise perfect security record.

“That there were no cancellations is explained by one major factor — that the attack was an isolated incident, it wasn’t perpetrated by an organised group and it doesn’t represent a general trend,” said Hisham Zaazou, director-general of the Egyptian Federation of Chambers of Tourism.

The government, meanwhile, has remained steadfast in its insistence that the incident — in which three foreigners were killed and 18 injured — was “an individual act.” State media reported that it was perpetrated by 18-year-old engineering student Hassan Ahmed Bashandi. While Bashandi reportedly was not involved in any known militant organisations, he may have been helped in preparing the attack by a number of like-minded associates. Regardless of who was behind the operation, though, the incident represents the first reported terrorist act to target foreigners on mainland Egypt in several years.

The last such incident was in 1997, when 58 foreign tourists were killed in the upper Egyptian province of Luxor by members of the virulently anti-state al-Gamaa al-Islamiya group. The massacre was a watershed for the tourism industry, as well as for the murky world of domestic power politics, marking the end of the Islamist insurgency that had gripped the country for most of the 1990s.

The Luxor attack — which was received with horror by most Egyptians — resulted in a declaration by al-Gamaa al-Islamiya of an official ceasefire with Cairo and total renunciation of violence. The declaration has remained in effect to the present day.

The incident gutted the local tourism industry. Hoteliers still refer to the ‘ayam Luxor’ - the “Luxor Days” — as the sectoral calamity to which all others are compared, painfully recalling the flood of cancellations that came in the wake of the tragedy. “It was the worst thing to happen to the tourism industry in the last 10 years,” said Mohamed Ghamrawy, former president of the Touring Club travel agency.

The reflexive panic that accompanies the spectre of empty hotel rooms is understandable: the tourism industry represents one of Egypt’s foremost drivers of the national economy. In 2004, despite almost uninterrupted violence elsewhere in the region, the sector enjoyed its best-ever year in tourist arrivals and revenue. According to figures from the tourism ministry, Egypt hosted an unprecedented 8.1 million tourists last year, a 34 per cent jump on 2003 figures.

Roland Bunge, general manager of American Express of Egypt, which specialises in inbound tourism, business travel and foreign exchange, lauded the “record profits, higher volume and greater turnover.” He attributed the healthy numbers to competitive pricing, given the strong purchasing power enjoyed by dollars and euros vis-à-vis the Egyptian pound in the wake of a 2003 currency devaluation.

Room-nights translate into cold cash for state coffers: according to figures from the Central Bank of Egypt, tourists brought the country revenues estimated at some 6.1 billion dollars last year. Figures for 2003 indicate that the industry contributed more than 11 per cent to gross national income (GNI) for that year.

No less important, the tourism industry also employs some 2.5 million citizens, in a country locked in mortal combat with chronic unemployment in combination with an exploding population. But despite these notable financial benefits, the tourism industry has also become an Achilles’ heel — a high-visibility mark easily targeted by enemies of the state.

The vulnerability was exploited to deadly effect in the years leading up to the Luxor massacre, when a few shots fired at a train full of tourists could cost the government millions in lost tourism receipts.

Between 1991 and 1997 there were large-scale, almost daily confrontations between the government and militant Islamist groups, says Mohammed Said, deputy director of the state-run al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

In those days, he added, “tourists were systematically targeted.” In spite of the al-Azhar attack, industry insiders are hoping that 2005 will prove to be another bumper year. “The outlook is highly promising — tourist nights continue to increase, and Egypt has become much cheaper after the devaluation,” said independent market analyst Shady Hassan Fouad.—Dawn/IPS News Service