Tourism in Egypt, Tunisia and most recently in Libya has been badly hit by the recent events affecting North Africa today. Due to "fear", "uncertainty" and "war" most tourists rule out the popular North African destinations in their search of (temporary) paradise. The Egyptian Tourist Authority says Egypt, which had nearly 15 million visitors last year, is loosing around 25 million dollars a day. Libya on the other hand is a rich country and does not depend on tourism as such, but the improvements and advancements it made in recent years to promote Libyan tourism and foreign investment have been badly affected by the destructive events currently taking place in the country; not to say that the already-damaged Tunisian economy was further affected by the events in neighbouring Libya. However, where tourism is the issue in Tunisia and Egypt, in Libya life itself is at stake. The UN embargo and the inability of the Libyan government to sell oil have resulted in severe shortages of both food and fuel; leading to prices doubling and even trebling for some products, thereby forcing large number of Libyan families to flee to Tunisia, where life is much cheaper. The United Nations had already warned of a humanitarian disaster and called for a "temporary cease of fire" a while ago to deliver aid.
0 comments:
Post a Comment