Futile hot deals: This year's summer holiday season is seen not be up to the standard due to the global economic crisis and swine flu fears, which will keep Egyptians away from beaches and hotels despite the hot deals offered by the local travel companies.

With the inception of summer season, Egyptian families usually escape the pressure of the year by travelling to summer resorts inside or outside the country.Due to the global financial crisis and the fasting month of Ramdan

, which falls during the summer season and the spread of swine flu, it is expected that travel movement will slowdown this year. Therefore, a fierce competition has sparked up among hotels and tourism companies to attract holidaymakers to summer resorts either inside or outside Egypt.Major tourism companies have recently introduced irresistible offers for people to spend their summer vacation outside Egypt. They can spend a week outside Egypt with prices no less than that spent for spending two or three days in the Red Sea resorts of Hurghda or Sharm el-Sheikh. A Cairo-based travel company, for example, has offered a seven-day trip to Paris for LE4,890 (more than 800 US dollars) including airticket and and accommodation. An eight-day trip in Istanbul costing LE2,550 including accommodation in new hotels, has also been offered. Another company has introduced a more alluring offer when it declared that an eight-day trip to Istanbul for just LE2,290. Despite such fantastic offers some citizens are still unsatisfied. Fathi Aglan, an engineer, asserts that the Egyptian family is no longer encouraged to go to summer resorts because of the high costs.“Now there are resorts for the poor and others for the rich. Spending just one day in Alexandria, or the North Coast, without meals, costs about LE900.”Abdel-Raham Anwar, a civil servant, also agrees. He said that Alexandria is a resort for high-profile officials and tourists rather than ordinary Egyptian citizens.“Despite the fact that the world has been hit by a biting economic downturn, there is still an upsurge in the prices of hotels in Egypt. In the meantime, there is a decrease in the prices of tourism outside Egypt, as if foreign countries want us to go out of Egypt in summer,” Anwar added. While Yara Mahmoud, a university student, revealed that many of her relatives and friends prefer to go to Lebanon or Turkey, since tourism companies offer them facilities and large discounts.“The Egyptian hotels prefer foreigners to Egyptians and give them all the facilities, unlike the expensive packages they offers to Egyptians.