Egypt - What can happen in 12 months!

What can happen in 12 months?  They say that 2011 was the year with the greatest number of Global changes or events in memory. 

One of those changes which spring to mind is of course the Arab Spring.  It is now one year since the beginning of the Egyptian Revolution when 18 days of protest saw the ending of a 30 year reign by its President.  We also witnessed the fighting in Libya and Tunisia and are unfortunately still bearing witness to conflicts in Syria.

These are all countries that Explore and our customers love to visit.  We have been operating in Egypt since we started operating as a Company in 1981.  Our Felucca tour was one of our first tours and it continues to delight people to this day.

The number of emails, Facebook comments, phone calls and requests asking after our Tour Leaders and Agent and their families in Egypt from customers was really touching.  As soon as the Foreign Office deemed it safe to return to Egypt, our Product Manager, Alison returned there straight away to visit our leaders and agents, to offer our support and show our loyalty but also to try to understand as best she could what had happened and was happening to a country that she herself had spent 6 months working in as a Tour Leader 6 years previously.  She wanted to try to understand it so as to help our customers understand and try to get to grips with such a huge change.

12 months later and the changes are still coming.  We have had elections in Egypt where more than 70% of the voting population are said to have participated.  The elections are still not complete but it certainly looks like more change is yet to come.  I am the Operations Manager for Egypt and this September I visited our Tour leaders out there, something which we do every year.  This year, our conversations were quite different.  People are keen to talk, discuss, debate and analyse all that has gone on and is going on.  They told me, when you have 2 Egyptians in a room you will always have at least 3 opinions!  And as you can imagine, about the elections and the Uprising, everyone has an opinion.  That’s when I decided that our tour leaders should share their opinions with us.  They are the people our customers meet; they are the ones who give us our cherished memories of Karnak Temple or nights on the Felucca or snorkelling in the Red Sea.  They are the ones that build our opinions and feelings about Egypt, their country, their culture, their history.  And it is their lives that are changing …fast.  I wanted to know how they felt so I asked them 3 simple questions:

 

How did you feel about your country?  How did you feel about yourself?  How did you feel about your life? Before, during and since the revolution and this is what some of them had to say:

Wael Wanas

BEFORE the Revolution:

• My life before the revolution was very busy with work and I did enjoy every minute of it, there is nothing like talking and showing people my country and life in my country but when they ask me about freedom, education, health I do answer their questions but with lots of sadness because Egyptians are very kind, welcoming, love to laugh and proud nation, proud of our history, we went through a lot in the last 5000 years. But we are missing lots of things to have a better life, a life that matches our history.

• My country was so corrupted in all levels and I see that every day in my work and my groups can see it as well and in all my talks to my groups in the last 6 years I was saying if things in my country didn't improve something will happen, but what happened was much more than I had in mind.

DURING the Revolution:

• was lots of mixed feeling first everything happened when I was leading a western desert tour, was afraid that anything will happen to my group, first thing came to my head how to take my group safe to the Airport and when I did that start to think that the country heading to the unknown, especially in the first 3 weeks after the 25th of JAN then things start to get better.

• such a huge change happen to Egypt  in 18 days didn't know if its reality or not but really didn't matter as for sure Egypt did change and its going to be a good change

AFTER the Revolution:

• after the revolution, I was and still am so happy like most of the Egyptians that we are changing to be a better nation really feeling the meaning of having a better standard of life with better education, health care, freedom and justice which was really missing before the revolution and I start to read about other revolutions in different countries and then realised that it will take time, a time we need adapt the change we are going through, I am so proud of what we did and I really enjoy talking about the revolution to my groups, also did feel sad that my work affected badly after the revolution but its a normal thing to happen just wish that everyone to come to Egypt to see the change its allot better in so many ways
• My country now drawing the main lines to shape the country future but again need time to adapt the change Egypt start to be better than used to be
• My hope that will take less time to change, because the Egyptians can do it , they did it before.

 

Mohammed Atta

BEFORE the Revolution:

• in 2005 and after the elections a new government was appointed by the president and the majority of the minsters were businessmen which we called at that time the marriage between wealth and authority we felt the wealth of Egypt was taken by very few people, poor people were getting poorer they can’t even afford the basics of their life

DURING the Revolution:

• It went on for 18 wonderful days in our history starting by a very educated young people whom were surrounded by normal people from all ages to become people revolution.
  the regime has tried to use every single way to stop it from success, set the war against them in media showing them as non loyal protesters receiving funding from international organisations which was proved false, killing more than 800 protesters but never stopped, I haven’t seen such a great atmosphere in my life watching them cleaning the square every night, every one sharing his food, drink, life with other people it was the moment Egyptians said no for unjust, violence, corruption.
  it was great to see all of that when I went to buy my marriage suit and decided to walk into Tahrir square and be there, in 11 February 2011 the victory moment did actually happen and the peak of the regime Mubarak decided to leave, I watched the celebration on my wedding car, every car driving by my and my bride was carrying Egypt flags, it is a moment to stay on my mind forever.

AFTER the Revolution:

• the first goal of the revolution has successfully happened but too many other goals still waiting and it will take time to achieve ,fair and justice, good standard of life ,health ,education ,those are the goals ,it is time to work every on in his on place of the good for this country ,I feel that is the duty of every one loving this country ,as a tour guide I make sure when I have explore groups to tell them about our history revolution and make them have a wonderful time ,it is not over yet we have a lot of work to do .

 

Tarek Tiro

BEFORE the Revolution:

• I think before the revolution for me the tourism business was good a lot of tours running in our company & other ones, all over Egypt was fine '' Cairo - Luxor- Aswan...Etc'', I saw it myself at Luxor, it was very busy.

• About the country I was sure that one day it'll be a revolution but when & how I got no idea, that's for many reasons, the most important one is the standard of living went down in a rapid way, the ex government always mentioned the Egyptian economy rose up but we didn't feel that.

DURING the Revolution:

• During the revolution, all agree that there were no tourism industry at all, with the absent of the police all the Egyptians got the duty to protect themselves families...etc.

• The country was unstable nobody knows what’ll happen in the future, but the good thing is the spirit between the people when we did the national communities to protect our streets & houses people know each other the cooperate together & no one can tell who is Muslim & who is Christian, it went really good, to be honest there were some looting & criminals but the army & the people did their best to control & they did.

AFTER the Revolution:

• After the revolution to be honest the business not like before, but the good thing is it recovered quickly & nobody expected that, I did my first tour in March!! & there were no problems at all, the tour went perfect & my group enjoyed their time a lot & they promised to tell every one how nice is Egypt & the Egyptians.

• About the country there were some protests from time to time in Tahrir square, we got two governments in 10 months, but the life is going easily, the appearance of the police is perfect, the elections went perfect, I think after the elections is over & the Egyptians choose the president the tourism industry will grow up quickly & Egypt will be one of the best destinations.

Taso

BEFORE the Revolution:

• My life before Jan2011 was kind of a normal life so easy and quite.
  My feeling about my country was proud to be an Egyptian.

DURING the Revolution:

• My life during Jan&Feb2011 was bit stressful watching what's going on around me.
  My feel about my country was bit worried about it and not sure what is good for it.

AFTER the Revolution:

• My life now is much calmer than it used to be on the last few months.
• My feel about my country still worried about what's happening.

 

Wish us all the best...

Conclusion

Taso asked us to wish Egypt all the best.  To say we wish them all the best is really an understatement.  Egypt has been such a huge part of Explore and our customers since we began operating.  They are a huge part of the Explore global family.  We have known and worked with families out there through the generations.  We are excited for them for the times ahead, nervous for them for the time in the present, delighted and grateful for the times in the past and cannot wait to be part of all good times ahead in the future.  We most certainly do wish them all the best, not just our Tour Leaders and their family and friends but also the whole country of Egypt.