The Minister of Tourism, Rania Al-Mashat, informed Daily News Egypt that the private equity fund aims to restructure the financially impaired hotels and the other tourism establishments through launching a hotel development fund to provide them with capital, which enables the ministry to conduct the necessary investments.

She added that her ministry is coordinating with experts to manage the hotel development fund, while cooperating with Egyptian banks with the purpose of restructuring the debts incurred from the tourism sector’s establishments.

Al-Mashat announced last November that the government plans to establish a new private equity fund in order to upgrade Egypt’s hotels as well as to provide new investment opportunities in the sector.

In terms of the government’s plans which aim to develop the tourism sector, the minister noted that there is a structural reform programme which includes different pillars, such as institutional and legislative reforms, promotion and marketing activities, infrastructural and tourism development, as well as the global trends programme.

Al-Mashat pointed out that the ministry is planning to set a strategy for sustainable tourism development until 2030, which aims to diversify Egypt’s tourism product, increases the number of tourists’ nights in the country, as well as creates direct and indirect employment with the community’s integration.

The tourism sector in Egypt has suffered a downturn since the 25 January Revolution in 2011, and also after a Russian passenger plane crashed in Sinai in late October 2015 and all its passengers were killed. Yet, since 2018, the sector began to revitalise again, regaining its previous position.