Tourism programme to trace Holy Family’s steps through Egypt

Tourism programme to trace Holy Family’s steps through Egypt

Egypt and it's tourism industry had been going through a tremendous hardship - some say it's about to be considered destroyed. Tourism officials are scrambling to think out of the box to relaunch this important economic pillow of the country. To capitalize on Egypt's rich religious heritage, the Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazou will launch a touristic program following the steps of the Holy Family through Egypt in October.

According to the Christian Bible, the Virgin Mary and Jesus stayed in Egypt for 42 months, visiting 20 different places.

According to the Egyptian tourism ministry the program will allow people to follow the Holy Family’s journey.

Egypt’s has a distinctive religious identity as a place of refuge, at different points in history, sheltering Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The journey will take around a week.

The items, included across Egypt, include churches in Old Cairo, Maadi, Wadi El Natrun, and Al- Minya

Pope Tawadros II said tourism is “indispensible” for the national economy, pointing out that Jesus Christ was the most significant visitor to Egypt. For a small fee, the pope has agreed to open monasteries to tourist groups on the condition that the priests living there would be notified about the date and time of visits beforehand.

Zaazou said the Tourism Development Authority will hold training sessions for priests in churches and monasteries as part of the program to prepare them for tourists. The ministry will coordinate with the Egyptian General Tourist Guide Syndicate to update the information and references related to the Christian shrines that the Holy Family visited.

There have been biblical tours in Egypt, including programms that follow the Moses’s route through the country, before, but Tadros said they weren’t well promoted. Some people don’t even know the Coptic History in Egypt, she said.

This initiative is to promote religion for tourism. It's supposed to benefit the country economically and culturally.

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