Egypt's tourism workers call for protest

Egypt’s tour guides Saturday called for staging a major protest in the heart of the Egyptian capital to call attention to the importance of tourism for Egypt’s economy and the deteriorating conditions for the nation’s tourism workers in the aftermath of the January 25 revolution.

The tour guides lashed out at statements by a Muslim Brotherhood leader who in a recent conference cautioned against alcohol and swimsuits, saying more than 5 million tourism workers need to be considered when planning the future of this vital sector.

Away from this call to protest and in the Upper Egyptian Governorate of Luxor, one presidential hopeful, Selim Al-Awa, said in a public rally on Friday that tourism was about “more than just beer and bikinis”.

Al-Awa expressed his opposition to Salafist views about the country’s ancient monuments, explaining that the early Muslims would have destroyed them if they thought they were bad.