Sisi opens Grand Egyptian Museum, calls it 'new chapter in history'

The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday opened the Grand Egyptian Museum, a long-awaited, billion-dollar showcase for pharaonic treasures, saying that its inauguration opened “a new chapter in history”.

“Today, as we celebrate together the opening of the Grand Museum of Egypt, we are writing a new chapter in the history of the present and the future, in the cause of this ancient homeland,” Sisi told a gathering of princes, queens, heads of state and other dignitaries at a ceremony in the museum’s square.

Egypt hopes vast new museum by the Pyramids will accelerate tourism

Egyptian officials are hoping the inauguration of a vast new museum  will accelerate the revival of a tourism industry hampered for more than a decade by internal upheaval, a pandemic and regional conflicts.

Officials believe the Grand Egyptian Museum, or GEM, alone could draw as many as 7 million additional visitors annually after it opens on Saturday, helping boost total visitors to around 30 million by 2030.

Overlooking the Giza Pyramids, the 500,000-square-meter edifice will house tens of thousands of artefacts, including what is billed as the complete collection of the treasures of the boy-king Tutankhamun, many displayed for the first time.

The new space includes immersive exhibits and virtual-reality devices, in contrast to cluttered, old-fashioned displays in the older Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo.

Egypt, which has needed repeated bailouts to stabilise its economy, uses the foreign currency it collects from tourism to pay for crucial imports such as fuel and wheat.

Last year the country drew 15.7 million visitors who spent a record $15 billion, according to official figures. Tourism had collapsed to a low of $3.8 billion in 2015/16, the victim of extended political turmoil after Egypt’s 2011 uprising.

However, factors including fraying infrastructure, poor planning and security restrictions have held back the tourism sector’s potential. Even with the recent recovery, Egypt trails regional rival Turkey, which said it had more than 50 million international visitors last year, bringing in over $60 billion.