Marwa Hafez, an Egyptology graduate on the college of Tourism and Lodge Administration in Suez, was employed in 2006 to work on the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as a part of a bunch of 26 new guides. Of all of them, nevertheless, Hafez was the one girl, a place that, simply as she was coming into the labor market, made her really feel lonely and, at occasions, intimidated. “It was not straightforward in any respect, for a younger girl in her 20s, to be round them,” she recalled.
Coming from a small village in Sharqiya governorate, Hafez managed to carve out a distinct segment for herself over time, till she was finally in a position to take the leap and open her own business as a tour information in what’s nonetheless a uncommon transfer. “Within the [tourism industry] most employees are males, there was no actual assist,” Hafez advised Al-Monitor. “Making ready excursions is a enterprise: tickets, resorts, vehicles, drivers. And all of those are simply male, male, male and male,” she added.
But wanting again and evaluating the scenario to now, Hafez mentioned there’s some change, albeit sluggish, and that she perceives some better presence of ladies within the sector past being simply tour guides in massive corporations. “Now I’ve a secure life, I want to assist others,” she mentioned. “I attempt to assist girls of their profession, to push different girls to come back and be a part of.”
Like her, extra girls are steadily breaking into Egypt’s tourism sector and launching their very own initiatives, usually selling alongside the best way a new type of experience away from the industrial applications and mass tourism mannequin that characterizes the nation and that dives into lesser-visited areas and sometimes neglected actions.
The Egyptian authorities has additionally been notably eager in recent times to push for better participation of ladies in its tourism trade, one of many nation’s most dynamic financial sectors. In November 2018, the Tourism Reform Program drawn up by the Ministry of Tourism said its dedication to extend the workforce of ladies within the sector by cooperating with tourism colleges to handle the low school-to-work transition, offering anti-harassment coaching at workplaces and selling feminine function fashions.
In Might 2019, Egypt additionally grew to become the primary nation on this planet to introduce the Gender Equality Seal program, developed by the United Nations Growth Program, in tourism, as a part of its National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women 2030. The Ministry of Tourism has additionally arrange a Closing the Gender Gap Accelerator aimed toward rising girls’s participation within the workforce to attain parity, advancing extra girls into administration positions and shutting gender gaps in remuneration.
“This has been carried out by means of the restructuring of the Equal Alternatives Unit after merging the ministries of Tourism and Antiquities [in 2019], together with members from all sectors of the ministry and its affiliated our bodies,” Ghada Shalaby, deputy minister for tourism, advised Al-Monitor. “The unit is designated to assist girls and obtain equal alternatives on the ministry and deal with gender-based discrimination.”
She mentioned, “The variety of girls working within the tourism sector is 12,446, which represents 10% of the workforce within the trade. This quantity consists of 2,447 feminine tour guides, which displays the secure ambiance of this area.”
One such initiative established in 2016 is Bellies En Route. Its founders, Laila Hassaballa and Mariam Nezar, are captivated with meals anthropology and arranged their very own travels round meals tradition, till they realized that nobody in Egypt had considered launching a meals tour but. They then determined to take the lead and design one in Cairo. “Many vacationers come right here and go away with out really making an attempt our meals, precise Egyptian meals, which isn’t a part of their journey,” Nezar advised Al-Monitor.
Though different, much less bold initiatives have popped up since then, largely linked to Airbnb experiences, Bellies En Route continues to be the one specialised meals tour firm in Egypt. And its founders are hoping to have the ability to develop in 2022, develop different excursions, increase to different cities and design merchandise additionally directed at Egyptians. “We wish meals to be the car that we use to show individuals our tradition,” Hassaballa advised Al-Monitor.
Additionally aiming to indicate the general public a lesser-visited facet of Cairo, Asmaa Khattab launched in 2015 the initiative Walk Like An Egyptian. Earlier than doing so, Khattab used to work as a tour information with the extra industrial tour applications provided by massive journey companies. However she rapidly felt dissatisfied as most excursions had been fundamental and never designed to get the vacationer expertise what she considers to be “the true Egypt.” She advised Al-Monitor, “I believed tourism was about hospitality, and Egypt and Egyptians are well-known for hospitality.”
By the top of 2013, Khattab additionally felt a social duty towards those that had been most hard-hit by the collapse of tourism within the wake of the nation’s post-2011 instability. And she or he determined to take a step ahead shorty after. “My thought was to assist native communities, and I noticed that we now have in Egypt untouched and really wealthy potential for heritage and tradition that isn’t utilized in tourism. It was additionally about enhancing the standard of tradition tourism in Egypt. I believed cultural tourism deserved a greater place,” she mentioned.
Even additional off essentially the most frequent vacationer tracks in Egypt, the award-winning Sinai Trail, a 550-kilometer (342-mile) mountain climbing path throughout southern Sinai Peninsula by means of the territories of eight Bedouin tribes, launched in 2019 a brand new initiative the place hikes are led, for the primary time, by native Bedouin girls, creating new alternatives and showcasing new narratives of the little-visited area. Sinai Path, which has been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, goals to combine within the hike the actual experiences of Bedouin girls.
“Individuals of the village and I had been very comfortable as a result of when individuals come, they convey work and cash to us,” Umm Yasser, one of many guides within the first hike, told Al-Monitor again then. “I’m particularly glad for the youthful generations as a result of I’m already outdated. I wish to see [more] individuals come and go to this place to assist different girls,” she added.
