The issue that generated great interest among the participants of the forum on www.tourdom.ru on November 27th was the information regarding tax fees for tourists leaving Egypt published on the web site of Detur. According to Anna Dimchoglo, Head of the Booking Department of Detur, they received information from the Egyptian partners: ‘upon the information received from the Ministry of Civil Aviation of Egypt starting from January 1st 2007 all passengers leaving Egypt pay the tax fee according to the following scheme: $7 – for passengers of charter flights, $15 – for passengers of scheduled flights and $3 – for passengers of domestic flights’. Similar information was also published on the Internet site of TourEnergoService: ‘upon the letter received from Tourism Committee of Egypt, 3$ tax fee will be charged from people leaving the country from 01.01.07 to 01.05.07 and 4$ from those leaving the country from с 01.05.07 to 01.10.07’.
Meanwhile, representatives of TourEnergoService were not available for comments when the material was prepared for the publication. Other tour operators interviewed by a BANK correspondent did not receive any messages of this type from any governmental organizations responsible for tourism issues. Thus, Anna Podgornaya, Sales Director of Pegas Touristik, commented as follows: ‘there was no official information from the Ministry of Tourism of Egypt and letters from partners are not official sources. They can be only recommendations for in-house use’. Furthermore, Said Nofal, Head of the Egyptian Tourist Board in Russia, could not operatively clear up the situation and promised to find out the details in the nearest time.
Furthermore, experts divided in opinion regarding the possible consequences of the Egyptian initiative. Thus, Anna Dimchoglo pointed out: ‘similar tax fees exist in other countries, for example, Thailand and the UAE. They do not affect the tourist flow’. ‘The fee is little; therefore, it can not affect the demand for Egypt. But the initiative might improve the work of airports that is an evident advantage’, stated Anna Podgornaya. Meanwhile, Sergey Burakov, Head of Air Transportation Department of Neva Travel Company, observed: ‘the reason is not clear. At the moment the 15$ fee is already paid by airlines. If the new fee substitutes the existing one it will not affect the tourist flow, however in case it turns out to be an additional one scheduled flights of a range of airlines might become charter, because Egypt is a cheap country (for example, accommodation in 2* hotel costs 7-8$ in low season. It is not an exclusive destination – people will not pay more for a scheduled flight’.
