More re end to Gilf Kebir kidnap ordeal

A peaceful end to Egypt's tourist hostage crisis this week and no apparent link between the kidnappers and Islamic militants means it will likely be a quickly passing storm for Egypt's booming tourism industry.

The Egyptian government is highlighting its efforts in the hostages' release, eager to claim it as a success to minimize the effect on one of its most important industries.

Egyptian officials welcomed the five Germans, five Italians, eight Egyptians and one Romanian with flowers at the airport and took them to a military hospital to check on their health before they flew home to their countries.

Tourism has reached record levels this year in the absence of any attacks that previously plagued the industry. Tourism revenues represented around 6.5 per cent of gross domestic product in 2007 and the industry employs an estimated 10 per cent of the workforce in the most populous Arab country.

The Egyptian tourism industry was hit by its bloodiest attack in the Pharaonic city of Luxor in 1997. The attack by an extremist Islamic group, which massacred 63 tourists at Temple of Hatshepsut, dealt a major blow to the Egyptian tourism industry.

However, the kidnapping of the tourists by a gang of masked men while on safari in the Gilf Kebir region of Egypt's Western Desert seems to be a new phenomenon.

'The kidnapping is not connected to terrorist attacks that have happened in Egypt in the past years,' said Simon Kitchen, senior economist at Cairo-based investment bank EFG-Hermes. 'It is hard to compare the incidents of crime to past terrorist attacks.'

Explore, the UK operator of adventure tours, has said that it will decide in the near future whether or not to proceed with future trips to the western desert in Egypt, a remote area where 11 tourists were abducted on 19 September.

The next tour offered by the company is scheduled to depart on 17 October, and would include several days of exploring the Gilf Kebir, an uninhabited desert area featuring a spectacular collection of prehistoric cave art and dramatic rock sculptures.

Gilf Kebir is the location where the kidnapping of the tourists, mostly European, occurred. The 11 tourists and their eight Egyptian guides were taken at gunpoint from the Egyptian desert across the border into Sudan.

Explore has reported that their client booked on next month’s tour have been offered the opportunity to change their booking to another of the company’s tours, but in fact are keen to proceed.

Other tour companies have indicated that their clients are staying in touch with them about conditions in various parts of Egypt, largely due to misleading reports in the media regarding the location of the abduction, indicating that it occurred in the vicinity of the popular tourist destination of Aswan.