The Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Enany and the Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat have had a meeting to follow up on the implementation status of a number of projects carried out as part of the protocol of cooperation signed by the two ministries, last November, for developing the technological infrastructure of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
During the meeting, the Minister of Tourism underlined that the digital transformation project builds on his Ministry’s strategy for attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and creating an accurate information system on the diverse types of Egyptian tourism to build a diversified economy based on providing tourism and antiquities services. This is in addition to improving work performance at the Ministry and the quality of digital services provided to tourists, leveraging modern technology in promoting Egyptian tourism and antiquities, introducing archaeological sites and museums, and rendering tourism services to visitors and tourists.
For his part, the ICT Minister stated that as part of the cooperation between the two Ministries and in light of building Digital Egypt, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) seeks to keep pace with global digital technologies and take advantage of the opportunities they enable in enhancing the competitiveness of the tourism and antiquities sector. This is achieved through providing digital mechanisms to create an added value for tourism services, thus contributing to attracting and encouraging tourists to visit Egypt, promoting its tourist attractions, and highlighting its civilization and iconic tourist and archaeological landmarks.
The meeting comes in the two sides’ keenness to follow up on their protocol of cooperation to ensure that the work proceeds according to the agreed time plan and to overcome any obstacles that may face the completion of projects. This is in addition to following up on what has been achieved in digitizing and archiving circulated documents and files at the Ministry of Tourism, as part of the concerted efforts to relocate the government to the New Administrative Capital.
During the meeting, it was announced that the electronic archiving of nearly 13 million documents of the Ministry of Tourism had been completed, as part of the process of relocating to the New Administrative Capital. The meeting also addressed the implementation status of creating an e-visa portal to help tourists obtain entry visas to Egypt easily, and adding new languages to the hotline 19654, which was created and developed by the Ministry of Tourism in cooperation with Xceed company of MCIT, in early July, with the resumption of tourism in Egypt, to receive tourists’ inquiries and reviews during their visit to Egypt.
Moreover, the meeting touched on a proposal to develop a new service for tourists through the mobile network operators (MNOs), involving sending a welcome message to tourists upon their arrival at the Egyptian airports, and introducing them to the Ministry of Tourism’s hotline. The aim is to achieve direct and fast communication with tourists and make sure they have a pleasant experience.
The two sides also discussed the updates on developing service and promotional digital portals for the Ministry of Tourism; automating services in hotels and tourist shops; managing the geographic information system (GIS); and creating a mobile application to provide services to tourists.
The meeting was attended by the Vice Minister of Tourism and Antiquities for Tourism Affairs Ghada Shalaby, the Deputy ICT Minister for Infrastructure Raafat Hindy, the Assistant Minister for Strategy and Implementation Sherine El-Guindy, the Advisor to the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities for Digital Transformation Khaled Sherif, and a number of officials from the two Ministries.
