A Plague on Egypt’s Tourism

A Plague on Egypt’s Tourism - The American Interest
The tragic crash of the Russian airliner should serve as a wake-up call. Egypt matters, and we take it for granted at our peril.
...As the belief that a bomb was the cause of the crash grows, and as investigators sift the debris and listen to the black box recordings (and as we think of the families of the victims), it’s worth thinking about what the crash could mean for Egypt and the world—because trouble in Egypt could be more consequential than many people understand.
...Tourists shun places where tourists end up getting killed, and Egypt has never needed tourists more than it does now (the tourism industry in Egypt makes up about 11 percent of its GDP, and indirectly employs around 11.5 percent of the country’s workforce).
And unfortunately for Egypt, international investors shy away from violent, unstable parts of the world.
Egypt does not have a lot of options for economic growth.
The region is beset by wars in Libya, Syria and across the Red Sea in Yemen, and Egypt itself is embroiled in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Morsi government, including the harsh crackdown that followed Morsi’s fall.
And even before the Morsi government fell, Egypt was already wounded by the instability under that government and permanently weakened by the old, corrupt nexus of clientelism and rent-seeking at the heart of Egypt’s political economy.
All of that means there is not a lot of give in this fragile system on which millions of people depend.
Moreover, Egypt cannot expect much more help from abroad.
...The tragic crash of the Russian airliner should serve as a wake-up call.
Egypt matters, and we take it for granted at our peril.