Introduction

In April 2008 when the Pounds has been faltering against Euro, Thousands of Britons are abandoning Europe and their traditional annual holiday plans, heading for more unusual destinations , where their currency means better value. Egypt and Tunisia becomes more popular destinations than the traditional Spain and Greece. There have been a 50% increase in searched flight for Red Sea’s resort of Sharm El Sheikh as spotted by Cheapflights.uk, while enquiries leapt up in April with favourites like Alicante in Spain showing a three per cent reduction in searches and Corfu in Greece dropping in position by 16 per cent.

Original article: “Egypt climbs the holiday charts of British travellers choices” by Michael Verikios – Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Essay by Rinza Adrial Sandy
Master in Tourism Destination Management student 2008/2009

Faltering currencies has forces majority of Britons holidaymaker to shift their holiday destinations preferences to non Eurozone destinations. In the article the General Manager of Cheapflights.uk said “We think many British families have been holding on to see if the pound picked itself back up against the European currency. But now they are not prepared to wait any longer, opting to holiday outside the Eurozone where they can get far better value for their money”. According to the Cheapflights.uk, among the non Eurozone destinations Egypt and Tunisia topped the preferences for holiday outside the Eurozone, both Countries has receives double digit increased in searched flight to their main tourism destinations area.
Egypt as the top choices of British travellers will directly benefit from this changes. Egypt has so many tourist attractions to offer, from antique buldings to a world known resort. The pyramid and sphinx of Giza and Abu Simbel temple in the south still amazes and attracts people centuries after its been build and the Sharm El Sheikh is already a world renowned tourist destinations for its temperate climate and long stretches of natural beaches. There are lost of activities can be found in the Sharm El Sheikh, from snorkelling, diving until late night dancing in nightclubs. The proximity of the locations and the battle of currency makes it even more preferable to the Britons.

However to adapt to these new boom of tourist, Egypt government have to improves and implement new rules and regulations in the area to increase security and safety of travellers. There are numerous reports of sexual harassment and violence in Egypt, and it should be taken more seriously by the government, the predicted arrival of Britons will not happen if the current situation continues. Sexual harassment is very common in Egypt, and many Countries including  UK have officially included sexual harassment to women in their travel advices to Egypt. In September 2008, it is known that 11 foreign tourist and 8 local have been kidnapped for ransom in south western area of Egypt, and this will surely declines the number of tourist visiting Egypt.

The articles also mentioned about popular destinations area that recently converted to Euro such as Malta and Cyprus. At the time it is predicted in the articles that the number of British travellers to the destination may be decreasing. Ecsery said “Two countries which switched to the Euro on 31st January this year also saw increases in search traffic compared to last year with Malta showing a 35 per cent increase and old favourite Cyprus still managing a 10 per cent increase. It will be interesting to see how the switch to the Euro will affect their popularity over the next six months or so.“ Although the numbers and figures were still unclear, but considering recent global economic situations, in my opinion the conditions will be reversed,since Euro are weakening toward Pounds. The outcomes of ongoing battle of currencies cannot be predicted and it will kept affecting tourism market in the future.