CRUISE traffic to Egypt is down at least 50 per cent, local operators said yesterday.
Less than two weeks after the November 17 massacre of 64 tourists and Egyptians in Luxor, local cruise operators are counting the cost of low bookings and cancellations.
“It’s not really a matter of cancellations because cruises are not booked up far in advance,” said Louis’ marketing manager George Michaelides.
Michaelides, who has just returned from the World Travel Market in the UK, said the problem was that foreign tour operators had removed Egypt from their programmes entirely.
He said people were still taking cruises, but “it’s very quiet”.
“We have Russians, Germans and Cypriots still going,” he said.
Michaelides said that although the official position was that Luxor, where the massacre occurred, should be unlisted, operators were taking their business away from other sites as well.
He could not say how long the problem would last, but operators are relieved the killings did not take place before the summer season when thousands take cruises as part of their package deal to the island.
“Like all other incidents, we believe it will go back to normal but it will take longer than usual this time,” Michaelides said.
He said the foreign tour operators were adopting a “wait and see attitude”.
In the meantime, Michaelides said Louis, the island’s biggest cruise operator, would continue its full programme to Egypt and take all the necessary security measures.
In the immediate aftermath of the atrocity last week, New Paradise Cruises had said business would suffer in the short-term but predicted tourist would soon go back.
Paradise executive Nicholas Anastassiades told the Associated Press that travellers through Limassol went through stringent security when they boarded boats for Egypt; within Egypt, their buses are accompanied by armed escorts in front and behind.
In September, Paradise Cruises started diverting its buses to secondary sights within Egypt after an attack on tourists in Cairo killed 10, but tourists grumbled that they wanted to go to Cairo. The tours were back within two weeks, Anastassiades said.
“I feel a lot safer in Cairo than I would in LA,” he said.
