CAIRO, Jan 13:
India and Egypt have a tremendous potential to boost tourism through shared experiences, according to travel experts.
The Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC) of the Indian Embassy here has organised a seminar on ‘Sustainable Tourism: New Avenues for Development’ with the participation of eminent Indian and Egyptian speakers.
The discussion, held last Thursday, focused on different themes with a primary emphasis on sharing experiences from developments in the space of tourism in countries like India and Egypt which have tremendous scope and potential to benefit from the tourism sector.
Sanjay Kandhari, Branch Head of Satguru Travels, said that India has many things to offer for tourists from landscapes to beaches and sites and other, which can be promoted and attract more tourists from around the world.
Kandhari also added that Egypt have the same ability to attract tourists also and both countries should promote these attractions in a better way.
As an Indian working in Egypt, Reuben Katariya, General Manager at Oberoi Egypt, said that Egypt has good aspects which India can learn for it; like that the Egyptian antiquities are well preserved and also the guides in touristic sites always have the same stories about the site and people never hear different stories about the same place.
Elhamy el-Zayat, ex-chairman of the Egyptian Tourism Federation said that social media is an important tool to promote tourism in both countries.
“I always say that we have tools that we didn’t have in the past, which social media. We can always say stories that are interesting for everybody,” he said.
For Gamal Raef, tourism writer, there is a common element between the Indian and Egyptian tourism which is the cultural tourism because the two countries have deeply rooted civilisation.
Raef also said that he hope that both countries can work together in the field of medical tourism and promote it among tourists, especially when both countries are cooperating in the pharmaceutical sector.
The speakers also mentioned that one of the ways to promote Indian tourism in Egypt is showing more Bollywood movies as they are already gaining more fans in Egypt.
India’s Ambassador to Cairo Sanjay Bhattacharyya also participated in the discussion and emphasised how India and Egypt could be connected through Bollywood cinema.
He also mentioned that some Indian movies have already been screened on the big screen in recent period.
“What we are trying to do is to get Bollywood onto the big screen because there are many Egyptian watch Bollywood on the small screen and I don’t think that is the way to watch Indian Cinema, you should really watch it on the big screen,” the envoy said.
The seminar is the sixteenth edition of the monthly series of MACIC Roundtable, a monthly seminar series involving youth, academicians, culture lovers, civil society on issues of mutual interest to India and Egypt. (PTI)
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