Egypt taps Indian cuisine, Bollywood magic

Vegetarian food, attractive holiday packages and, above all, advertising the country through Bollywood and regional cinema are all part of an elaborate game-plan chalked out by Egypt';s tourism ministry. The country is just about recovering from declining footfalls due to political unrest of the last few years, to woo the globe-trotting Indian traveller to the Land of Pyramids.Ismail Hamid, the Egyptian Tourism Counsellor to India, said the country was reviving from the slowdown in tourist arrivals following the 2011 revolution that saw the toppling of two governments in three years.

According to Hamid, tourist footfalls fell from 14.7 million in 2010 to around 10 million in 2014 - a drop of about 32 percent - while Indian footfalls declined by a whopping 48 percent in the same period, largely due to perceptions that Egypt has become unsafe due to chronic political violence brought about by the Arab Spring and its chaotic aftermath with hundreds of deaths and then the transition to a military-led government after a failed experiment with democratic rule. Egypt';s tourism ministry has set itself to increase the figure in the next couple of years to lure the ever-increasing number of Indians travelling abroad.

"We believe that India could be a very promising market for us. Though the percentage of Indian travellers to Egypt is low, the numbers are growing thanks to the interest of Indians to travel," said Mumbai-based Hamid."We are planning to widen the network of direct flights from different cities of India to all major tourist destinations of Egypt as well as actively advertise here about adventure tourism destinations that are famous," Hamid said.

Noting that Indians are quite picky about their food and choose destinations accordingly, Hamid said Egyptian dishes and their preparation were quite similar to India's. However, it';s the love for films that is common to both Egypt and India, felt Hamid, who has an elaborate strategy in place to reach out to the masses through Hindi and regional cinema by promoting Egypt as a location to shoot more Indian films.

Bollywood blockbusters like Amitabh Bachchan- starrer "The Great Gambler" or "Singh is Kinng", "Kabhie Khushi Kabhie Gham" and "Maine Dil Tujhko Diya", among others, were partly shot in Egypt. "Our plans are not only for Bollywood but also for Tollywood, Chitrapat (Marathi) and other regional cinema. The third edition of the "India by the Nile festival" inaugurated by Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan was also a step in this direction.

By Rahul Vaishnavi