Egypt’s dues to foreign tourism companies, which carry out promotional campaigns of Egyptian tourist destinations abroad, recorded $16m.
Hany Shoukry, head of JWT which was assigned by the Ministry of Tourism to conduct a three-year promotional campaign, said that MindShare world agency—which carried out a number of media campaigns outside Egypt—has dues amounting to $9.5m.
Shoukry added that the Egyptian government has not repaid its dues for about 15 months, while JWT has received only EGP 8.5m of its total dues for the promotional campaigns, equivalent to nearly $1m based on the US dollar price before 3 November of EGP 8.88, while it now reached about EGP 19 in some banks.
He added that the total cost of the promotional campaigns for Egyptian destinations reached $24m in 18 months.
Shoukry explained that some of the foreign tourist offices affiliated with the Egyptian Tourism Authority have delayed their approval of the promotional campaigns bills.
He pointed out that Egypt was banned from launching any promotional campaigns in Germany because the Egyptian Tourism Authority had not repaid its dues amounting to $7m to German companies which carried out previous campaigns.
JWT won the promotional campaign tender in August 2015 for a three-year period. Under the tender contract, the company will promote Egyptian tourism destinations in 27 tourist markets for $68m.
