India and Egypt aim at boosting tourism industry

CAIRO: India has organised a seminar here to make Egyptians aware about its diverse culture and boost tourism between the two nations, which according to the Indian envoy here was below potential.

The Indian Embassy here in association with India Tourism Office in Dubai organised the seminar entitled 'Incredible India Road Show'.

India's Ambassador to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya that India and Egypt were two of the very large population countries, but the level of tourism between them was below potential.

"The reason that we are here today is to make sure that we reach that potential," the Ambassador said.

Bhattacharyya also mentioned that both countries have enormous wealth of tourist resources.

"We are ancient civilisations and the historical sites are unimaginable to most of the other world," the ambassador said.

"We have tourism sites which range from historical, cultural, ancient monuments, to religious sites and the landscapes," the Ambassador said.

He said that India offered new experiences like wellness tourism and wedding tourism.

I R V Rao, assistant director of India Tourism Dubai, said that the Indian tourism campaign in Egypt is important as it would make people know more about India and its diverse culture.

"In 2016 there was a 4 per cent increase in the number of Egyptian tourists to India as compared to 2015.  We expect at least 12 to 15 per cent increase in the number of Egyptians tourists to India by 2018 ," Rao told PTI.

"We have 21,000 Egyptians are travelling to India but Indians travelling to Egypt are six time more 1,20,000. So we world like to invite travel agencies to make different offers and convince tourists to consider travelling to India as it offers so much," he added.

The event was attended by Indian and Egyptian tour operators, officials of Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Egyptian Tourism agencies.