Egypt hopes vast new museum by the Pyramids will accelerate tourism revival

CAIRO – Egyptian officials are hoping the inauguration of a vast new museum on Nov 1 will accelerate the revival of a tourism industry hampered for more than a decade by internal upheaval, a pandemic and regional conflicts.

Officials believe the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, alone could draw as many as seven million additional visitors annually after it opens fully on Nov 1, helping to boost total visitors to around 30 million by 2030.

Overlooking the Giza Pyramids, the 500,000 sq m edifice will house tens of thousands of artefacts, including what is billed as the complete collection of the treasures of the boy king Tutankhamun, many displayed for the first time.

The new space includes immersive exhibits and virtual-reality devices, in contrast to cluttered, old-fashioned displays in the older Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo.  

Egypt, which has needed repeated bailouts to stabilise its economy, uses the foreign currency it collects from tourism to pay for crucial imports such as fuel and wheat. 

Cultural tourism hopes

In 2024, the country drew 15.7 million visitors, who spent a record US$15 billion (S$19.5 billion), according to official figures.

Tourism spending had plunged to a low of US$3.8 billion in 2015/16, the victim of extended political turmoil after Egypt’s 2011 uprising.

However, factors such as fraying infrastructure, poor planning and security restrictions have held back the tourism sector’s potential.

Even with the recent recovery, Egypt trails regional rival Turkey, which said it had more than 50 million international visitors in 2024, bringing in over US$60 billion.

Associate Professor Ghada Abdelmoaty, from the Higher Institute of Tourism and Hotels in Alexandria, said visitor targets were realistic. 

“The museum accommodates a huge collection that was previously kept in storage due to lack of display space,” she said.

Popular with many travellers for its Red Sea resorts, Egypt hopes GEM’s opening will also draw an increasing proportion of cultural tourists. 

Such tourists typically stay longer and spend more than those who come mainly for beaches, analysts say.

Official figures do not say how many tourists come for cultural reasons, but a 2021 study of GEM’s possible impact estimated they made up less than a quarter of the total. 

Prof Abdelmoaty put the number of cultural tourists at only 10 per cent to 15 per cent of all international travellers.

Mr Remon Naguib, chief commercial officer at Orient Hospitality Group, said his company was working to integrate the new museum into “joint programmes” designed to attract visitors to experience both. 

Tourists could “come and visit the museum, then spend three nights in a Red Sea destination, including Ain Sukhna, which is just one hour from Cairo”, he said.

Roads given facelift, pyramids entrance moved

Tourism revenues became even more important over the last two years as attacks on Red Sea shipping chased shipping away from the Suez Canal, another major foreign currency earner. 

Tourism itself has proven vulnerable to shocks, including political violence in the 1990s and 2000s, the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine – two countries which accounted for nearly a third of tourist arrivals in 2021.

Tourism has also been hurt by the war in Gaza.  

To fully capitalise on GEM’s opening, the museum “has to be complemented by very high-quality tourist infrastructure – hotels, transport and beyond”, said Professor Ragui Assaad, who teaches international economic policy at the University of Minnesota. 

That means addressing issues like transport in Cairo, a megacity with an estimated population of 23 million. Roads leading to the new museum have been given a facelift, while a new airport has been built about 25km from GEM to circumvent clogged streets.

Entrance to the Giza Pyramids has been relocated to the back side to reduce crowding and keep visitors away from the area’s famously aggressive tourist touts.

Tourism Minister Sherif Fathy said in September that Egypt had added 5,000 hotel rooms to its existing 235,000 and hoped to add yet another 9,000 before the year ends. REUTERS