Picture 4
of tourist areas as seen in figure 1. This trend of promoting mass tourism in Cairo and Egypt as a whole shows no signs of stopping, with the government hoping to get 140 million overnight stays, as well as creating 24,000 more hotel rooms by 2010. The Valley of the Kings itself is not planned to be or is that built up, as that would ruin the experience and point of visiting that area, but it is moderately built up. Tourism in the Valley of the Kings and in Cairo has made many impacts, in which the most obvious would be in the economy.
Figure 1
The economy in Egypt before tourism became so big was one mostly based on agriculture, international shipping and trade through the Suez Canal. When tourism arrived on the scene, it added the boost needed to help push this nation to develop. Tourism has created 2.5 million jobs, takes up 11.3% of the GDP, and collects over 12 billion dollars in direct income, never mind the indirect affects it as on the economy such as allowing the people involved to spend in the local economy. International investment has followed, as well as linking this country with the rest of the world. But this is just one side of how the economy has been affected by tourism. ‘’In the 1990s, a new development policy had been established with the issuance of the Presidential Decree No. 425 for the year 1992 to establish the General Authority for Development of Tourism which contributes to the development of integrated tourism with the assistance of distinctive international and national expertise.’’( ). This group helped to create 75,000 hotel rooms from 1992 to 2008. This policy of mass tourism is not lost on the current government who have worked on that angle to the present day. This mass tourism has led to great business in the capital, with the four season’s hotel and hotels like it taking in several thousand tourists a month, as well as expanding to new locations. This has created many jobs in the capital, in which a waiter can earn about 5000 Egyptian pounds, more than the average of $4,282, and many of this income is not taxed, as the government has no recordings of the tips received. But if people can make this much money without a degree, surely they won’t have to go to school, and which this can be seen by the attrition of people leaving secondary education, with 66% enrolled at age 15, 57% at age 16, and 30% at age 17 in 2008. As one can see, many do not finish their secondary education, preferring to make cash in areas like the service industry. But this job is very competitive, and that physical appearance and age is a factor to becoming employed. There are nearly no labour laws to protect many employees or guides. This results in a labour force that is uneducated and when they do lose their job, they will have no skills to fall back on. Yet the bright image of getting a job in the tourism industry, such as a guide for the tours inside King Tut’s tomb, is resilient with the poor rural populations in need of a job. This want of a job in the rural areas does not appear out of nowhere. Because of Egypt’s rising wealth, it can afford such utilities as clean water, electricity, and better health care as well as food for young children. This has resulted in many families having a relatively high fertility rate at 2.72, with a low infant mortality rate (28.4 deaths per 1000). This results in too many kids, and not enough land, as seen in image 5 (this problem is aggravated by farms being bought up and going commercial, sometimes leaving the family homeless). These people go to the city in search of a job and a way of life through hopes of a job such as that found in the tourism industry. Once in Cairo through the process of rural-urban
Picture 5
migration, many of these people do not find good jobs because of their lack of experience and language skills and become homeless. This homeless problem is aggravated more by tourism by how hotels such as the Four Seasons in Cairo drive up real estate prices. Land around the CBD becomes even more expensive, driving up the prices of the surrounding areas. People that could afford to live there now cannot, resulting in an increased number of homeless people, such as an estimated 500,000 street children, as seen in image 6. This gives rise to the social problems that go along with it. To add insult to injury, these problems caused by the tourism industry go virtually unanswered, and in fact has little bearings on the corporations involved with it. A large part of the money generated by tourism goes to the corporation’s headquarters, such as that of Four Seasons to Canada. These corporations do not even bother to pay for the damage they have helped create in Egypt. The only way for the local economy is to benefit is if the tourists visit the local shops. People that arrive here tend to be from western cultures (Russia, Germany, and England are the biggest source of tourists, totalling over 3.5 million tourists in 2007) and are more likely to buy at stores that more resemble their home culture.
These mass tourists want it to be different, but not that different. This results in the local culture being changed to fit that of the culture of the tourists, which creates a ton of social issues by itself, never mind the issues caused by mass homelessness.
Picture 6
Tourism has contributed to the social and cultural issues that abound in Egypt today. The mass homelessness as well as a loss of culture has been one of the many problems brought up, but these problems have developed further to create and highlight bigger issues in Egypt. The homelessness has highlighted the lack of response and structure of Egypt as it is unprepared to handle such stresses. Crime has risen, and is linked to the mass homelessness. The education system, although already in a mess, is endangered further by the problem of early dropouts, which lowers the incentive for the government to invest in it either resource wise or in talent wise with the proper training for teachers. This has given rise to international schools, such as the IBO, which follow a western styled system, or religious schools, as seen in image 7, which promote their religion through the teaching of people from a young age that their religion is right. This religious schooling has helped to contribute to the extremism of religions in Egypt. But the problems that strike home for residents of Cairo and Luxor, a city outside of the Valley of the Kings, is the cultural issues brought on by westernization of the businesses and streets to attract western tourists. The friction being built up between the residents and the tourists can
Picture 7
be seen in the terrorist attacks outside of Luxor that killed 62 people in 1997, and the occasional terrorist attack on local tourist areas in Cairo and the surrounding country side. These religious militant groups believe that their way of life is in danger, and blame the tourists for it. These attacks have killed more bystanders than tourists, but the point is still clear: they want the tourists out. These groups are suppressed by the government, as such incidents tend to lower the amount of tourists that travel there as seen in graph 1. Another related problem is the exploitation of the country’s culture, in which their history is for sale. Thousands of pieces of art are collected from ruins and stolen from tombs and sold to tourists for a very cheap price by people desperate for money. This attack on heritage is even more evident through the mass tourism taking place in the Valley of the Kings. Tourists are taking pieces of ancient sites, as well as taking pictures of thousand of years old paintings on the walls in tombs, in which the flash ruins these paintings. This has caused the number of tourists that visit the tombs to be severely limited, such as King Tut’s tomb in which the amount of visitors allowed went to 1000 from 6000 previously. Tourists in the Valley of the Kings are known to sneak around the tombs,
Graph 1
climbing over them and exploring restricted areas. This has caused security in these areas to be enhanced. This destruction of the local area has not ended in cultural damage, but in environmental damages as well.
Tourism has created many environmental problems in Egypt. The most prominent would be those caused by the tourists themselves, such as litter. Tourist have contributed to negative environmental effects through the use of boats up and down the river for cruises, in which it destroys the delicate Nile river (in which fresh water pollution is 3.58 tons every cubic kilometre, which is at the same pollution level of the Thames in England, at 3.34 tons for every cubic kilometre), which the country’s agricultural industry is supported by, as can be seen in image 8. Airplanes and cars also contribute to pollution inside Cairo and in the suburbs surrounding it. This pollution is especially bad in Cairo, which has an urban NO2 concentration of 43.83 micrograms/m3, indicating heavy air pollution. But it should be mentioned that the money brought on by industries like tourism has generated the money and prosperity needed for people to actually start thinking of the economy. Before, it was more important to have the food on the table so one can eat than to worry about how bad the air is. But the contributions
Picture 8
of these corporations have their limits, and could be done in a different way in which pollution would be minimal. And this is even more important when a country is developing like Egypt is, in which the disastrous handling of the environment must be changed in order for the country to sustain itself. And as the differences can be seen in images 9 and 10, the want of bigger volume of tourists and bigger profits by large international corporations has spurred many of these problems. The main problem for stopping this is the corruption in the government, as can be seen in Egypt’s corruption perception index rating of 2.9 in 2007, indicating a high level of corruption. This trend of corruption does not seem to be improving, as its rating was 3.3 in 2006. International tourism industries need a profit, and they do not think of the problems that these policies cause on the local people. They want to have no pollution laws, which mean no expensive upgrades or regulations of tourism boats, airplanes, cars, and what effects their resorts have on the environment through their garbage and unfiltered air pollution. This corruption is everywhere in Egypt, and could be a factor behind why no real labour laws have
Picture 9 Picture 10
come into effect, or that there are barely any regulations to keep the industry in check. The environmental problems are just an addition to social problems, as it poisons the population and shows the corruption in government.
Tourism is a tour de force in Egypt, with many problems and their causes. These causes can be connected together to create one giant picture of cause and effect in Egypt’s society. The money generated by tourism creates an image of very good jobs, which results in people leaving the education system to get a good job quickly, but it usually doesn’t last and they become homeless. The education system becomes disregarded, creating an uneducated workforce as well as putting power in private western schools and religious schools. Religious schools indirectly help promote extremism through promotion of their religion as the right one, and all other religions are wrong. Feelings of hatred towards those that threaten to undermine their culture and change it, as well as the destruction by tourists to their heritage sites result in extreme retaliations such as suicide bombings. These attacks result in the government to help the tourist industry deal with these threats, as less tourism earns less money to the government. Tourism thus has little restraints (this can be attributed through government corruption as well), and can expand. This results in the buying up of prime land in Cairo, which results to high land values which further aggravates the homeless problem. The homeless problem creates higher crime rates and less regard to the environment, as well as allowing bad working conditions because of these peoples desperate desire for a job to get them off the
Graph 2
streets. The government is occupied with these social problems, and sees how the money generated from tourism can help solve them. Therefore, many companies meet little resistance for their economic or labour policies, allowing them to destroy Egypt’s environment as well as create many of the social problems because of the governments fear of interfering because of the money that could be lost if they do so. This can be seen in the share of foreign exchange earnings that tourism is a part of, as seen in graph 2. This is a situation in which the only clear winners are the leaders of the tourist industry and the wealthy people which profit from these ventures.
There are many aspects of the tourism industry in Cairo that need to be changed. Firstly, the idea of having mass tourists, as seen in image 11, should be rethought, as this type of tourism is not sustainable and will result irreparable damage such as the loss o irreplaceable cultural sites. Labour laws should be instated so that companies cannot just fire whomever they please. This will result in higher job security, and limit the amount of people that will pass through the industry. This will bring more value to the concept of the company educating their
Picture 11
young employees (with government aid). This will help create an educated workforce that the country will need in the near future if it wants to develop to the next level. The negative impact of this would be the expenses, as well as how to enforce it. The education system should be given back to the Egyptian government, and not organizations outside of the government’s direct influence. If this does not happen, a similar thing could happen to that in Pakistan in which religious schools have gained more and more power, as well as a rise in power of extremists. Reducing religious extremism will have a positive effect on the tourism industry, as it will reduce the number of attacks on western tourists. There should also be economic aid for the homeless people, but as this is unlikely, they could regulate the tourism industry and reduce the land sales that drive up the land values in the first place. This would go against the current government’s policy of mass tourism as it would limit the number of new tourist destinations and resorts. But the positives outweigh the negatives, as with this program crime can be reduced and mass education could become more readily available to the underprivileged, expanding the workforce. What would also expand the workforce would be the emancipation of women, as they are currently confined to their home, as can be seen in image 12. Including women in the education system would help create an educated work force, instead of having half the population stay at home remaining unskilled for the international economy. Their should also be regulations on the pollution that the industry promotes, as this
Picture 12
would improve the health of people as well as keep the bloodline for their agricultural industry clean. But the major problem that has to be dealt with first before all the rest is the corruption in government. As long as it stays strong, these improvements will have a hard time of even being publicly known. These solutions are only some suggestions to help create a more sustainable, and fair tourism industry in Egypt.
The improvements mentioned earlier are realistic and are a vital part of creating an industry that just does not take from a country, but gives as well. These improvements can help change the self destructive form of tourism that is common in Egypt, with its disregard of people that do not contribute to it, or its lack of respect of the workers who do participate. But these problems of corruption, exploitation, and cultural destruction are typical of tourism in developing countries. These international movements of greed and exploitation should be addressed and dealt with, not ignored for one’s convenience. It is this that brings up the question of whether tourism is sustainable, and whether it should be relied on by a country. And the verdict on Egypt is in. It is not sustainable, and a major change in world affair, out of the control of Egypt, could result in economic destruction, never mind the destruction at home of a nation’s cultural heritage through such a high volume commercial enterprise. It is time for country’s to recognize the kind of dependent and helpless relationship they have with tourism on the international scale and realize the risks associated with it. Mass charter tourism is great for the quick buck, but not to be a pillar of a nation.
