Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Yasser ElKady has announced the launch of the first version of the Egypt Tourism Portal to promote tourism through the internet.

The Minister was joined by the country's Tourism and Antiquities Ministers to unveil the new website and said it will provide information about tourist attractions and links to social media sites, among other functions.

Egypt's tourism industry is struggling to recover from a slump in the number of visitors, often attributed to political uncertainty and accompanying incidents of insecurity in the North African country.

ElKady highlighted the importance of unifying efforts to revitalise the sector. "The e-portal is within the framework of implementing the cooperation protocol signed between the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the Ministry of Tourism to implement the state's strategy of promoting tourism. It also aims to enhance communication with tourists and marketing tourism products using the latest ICT technology applications, by means of providing effective communication channels on the e-portal that apply international standards in e-marketing tourism products."

Minister of Tourism Yehia Rashed says the new e-portal is an important electronic window for marketing Egyptian tourism and an effective direct communication tool with tourists with different languages. He added that content displayed through the portal would be updated on an ongoing basis.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology says it secured the services of experts in the field of e-marketing, design and development of tourism e-portals to develop the Egyptian e-portal.

Commenting on the e-portal's features, the Ministry said, "The website was designed through the latest methods and technology used in the field of web design (Responsive Design) to comply with all modern devices used worldwide such as mobiles and tablets. This is in addition to the possibility of interacting and browsing through mobile phone applications."

"During the coming period, all the work associated with the project phases and continuous updating of the content on the e-portal will be completed. The second phase of the project targets enriching the content available on the portal and making it available in 14 different languages. This is in addition to preparing a specialised team to continuously update and add pages, services and new ideas for the site, besides providing the option of booking tours to Egypt through the portal."