Egypt hopes vast new museum by Pyramids will boost tourism

Egyptian officials are hoping the inauguration of a vast new museum on Saturday will accelerate the revival of a tourism industry hampered for more than a decade by internal upheaval, a pandemic and regional conflicts. Officials believe the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, alone could draw as many as 7 million additional visitors annually after it opens on Saturday, helping boost total visitors to around 30 million by 2030.

Located just outside Cairo next to the famed Giza Pyramids, the $1 billion mammoth facility is poised to become the world’s largest museum dedicated to a single civilisation with over 50,000 artifacts detailing the life in ancient Egypt. By comparison, the Louvre Museum in Paris has about 35,000 pieces on display.

The museum is one of the mega-projects championed by President Abdel-Fattah Al Sisi.

An Egyptian tourist guide talks and explains the history of exhibits at the Grand Egyptian Museum, scheduled to officially open on Saturday. Reuters

Overlooking the Giza Pyramids, the 500,000-square-metre edifice will house tens of thousands of artefacts, including what is billed as the complete collection of the treasures of the boy-king Tutankhamun, many displayed for the first time. The new space includes immersive exhibits and virtual-reality devices, in contrast to cluttered, old-fashioned displays in the older Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo. Egypt, which has needed repeated bailouts to stabilise its economy, uses the foreign currency it collects from tourism to pay for crucial imports such as fuel and wheat.

Last year the country drew 15.7 million visitors who spent a record $15 billion, according to official figures. Tourism had collapsed to a low of $3.8 billion in 2015/16, the victim of extended political turmoil after Egypt’s 2011 uprising. However, factors including fraying infrastructure, poor planning and security restrictions have held back the tourism sector’s potential. Even with the recent recovery, Egypt trails regional rival Turkey, which said it had more than 50 million international visitors last year, bringing in over $60 billion. Ghada Abdelmoaty, an associate professor at the Higher Institute of Tourism and Hotels in Alexandria, said visitor targets were realistic.

Tourists rest next to exhibits at the Grand Egyptian Museum. Reuters

“The museum accommodates a huge collection that was previously kept in storage due to lack of display space,” she said.

Popular with many travellers for its Red Sea resorts, Egypt hopes the GEM’s opening will also draw an increasing proportion of cultural tourists. Such tourists typically stay longer and spend more than those who come mainly for beaches, analysts say. Official figures don’t say how many tourists come for cultural reasons, but a 2021 study of GEM’s possible impact estimated they made up less than a quarter of the total. Abdelmoaty put the number of cultural tourists at only 10-15% of all international travellers.

Remon Naguib, chief commercial officer at Orient Hospitality Group, said his company was working to integrate the new museum into “joint programmes” designed to attract visitors to experience both. Tourists could “come and visit the museum, then spend three nights in a Red Sea destination, including Ain Sukhna, which is just one hour from Cairo,” he said.

Tourists stand under the statue of Pharaoh Ramses II, at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. AP

Tourism revenues became even more important over the last two years as attacks on Red Sea shipping chased shipping away from the Suez Canal, another major foreign currency earner. Tourism itself has proven vulnerable to shocks including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine – two countries which accounted for nearly a third of tourist arrivals in 2021.

Tourism has also been hurt by the war in Gaza. To fully capitalise on the GEM’s opening, the museum “has to be complemented by very high-quality tourist infrastructure — hotels, transport, and beyond,” said Ragui Assaad, professor of international economic policy at the University of Minnesota. That means addressing issues like transport in Cairo, a megacity with an estimated population of 23 million. Roads leading to the new museum have been given a facelift, while a new airport has been built about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the GEM to circumvent clogged streets.

Entrance to the Giza Pyramids has been relocated to the back side to reduce crowding and keep visitors away from the area’s famously aggressive tourist touts. Tourism Minister Sherif Fathy said last month Egypt had added 5,000 hotel rooms to its existing 235,000 and hoped to add yet another 9,000 before the year ends.

Reuters