I visited the Jordanian capital Amman last month to take part in the meetings of the Arab League's Ministerial Council of Tourism. My neighbour during the talks was the chief of Libyan delegation, Mr. Mohamed M. Marawan, who is the chairman of the Libyan Authority for Tourism and Traditional Industries.

It was a good opportunity to chat away about the new 25-year initiative launched by the Libyan government to enhance tourism in this Arab country. Mr. Marawan explained to me that the first five-year stage of this ambitious initiative was planned to increase investment in tourism and human resources. Mr. Marawan also stressed that the initiative was planned to upgrade the qualifications and skills of the staff in Libya's tourism industry by organising training and educational courses in Egypt, Arab and European countries.**Due to its impact on the Egyptian-Libyan tourist co-operation, I think it would be better to discuss broadly this Libyan ambitious initiative. An unhappy experience Mr. Marawan and his family had had at the Egyptian border city of Salloum prompted me to dedicate this week's article to the appalling sufferings of Libyan travellers planning to visit Egypt via this check-point. I should remind the reader that I had described Salloum check-point as an infamous and torturing place. To my shock, Mr. Marawan confirmed that travellers' sufferings in Salloum are getting worse and worse. The Libyan official also told me that many Libyan tourists had decided to keep away to avoid mistreatment and insults by aggressive Egyptian officials and security men. He complained that his family went through this unhappy experience during a journey he made by car to visit Egypt. His family was stranded at the border crossing for long hours under grim conditions until his car had been searched provocatively for drugs, explosives or anything else. According to his account, after these tasks had been accomplished, he was ordered to remove the Libyan number plate and nail down an Egyptian one. Different policemen came forward to make sure that he had a fire-extinguisher inside the car. Like many other travellers, his family was stranded in the place for hours without food or water. Worse, the place does not have any facilities such as toilets or restaurants. “To make matters worse,” the Libyan official continued. “travellers were mistreated and insulted by aggressive officials, who forced many people to rue the day in which they decided to cross Salloum check-point to Egypt,” he said. A year ago, the Egyptian Minister of Tourism, Zoheir Garranah, sent a fact-finding team to Tunisia to inspect a successful initiative made by Tunisian authorities to welcome tourists at a Tunisian-Libyan border check-point in Ras Gedir. I was a member of the Egyptian official team. Returning to Cairo, I wrote an article to draw the attention of Egyptian officials to the remarkable success achieved by the Tunisian officials in this respect, especially after the number of Tunisian and Libyan tourists in both countries increased to 1.400 million people in 2006 and 2 million in 2007. **Appreciating the importance of this task, the Egyptian Minister decided the team should include representatives from the Egyptian Federation of Travel Chambers, the Ministry of Administrative Development and security authority. We first travelled to Tunisia and from there we drove to the Tunisian-Libyan border town of Garba. We continued our journey to Libya. We met the Egyptian Consul in Tripoli, Adham Hilal, who deplorably indicated that grim arrangements and mistreatment at Salloum crossing border forced more than one million Libyan tourists to cancel their plans to visit Egypt for different purposes. The Egyptian diplomat noted that these tourists, including patients, refused to be stranded and mistreated for long hours until they would be allowed to pass. **Returning to Cairo, I published the Egyptian Consul's remarks and warnings. Although I appealed for the Egyptian officials to immediately carry out the team's recommendations and suggestions, nothing has been done since then. It seemed that the successful Tunisian initiative did not attract the attention of anyone in Egypt. **The fact-finding team discovered that the Tunisian initiative achieved a remarkable success after the authorities in Tunisia and Libya agreed to unify entry arrangements. According to these unified measures, the Libyan dinar and Tunisian pound were exchanged equally at exchange offices opened in the check-point; and each tourist was allowed to exchange 4000 of his country's currency. **When we arrived at the check-point in Ras Gedir we were escorted by representatives from the Tunisian Ministry of Tourism. Libyan officials led by the Egyptian Consul and the general-secretary of the People's Committee for Security, Dr Farag Nassif, also came forward to welcome us. We had had at first-hand experience about facilities offered to Libyan and Tunisian tourists moving both directions. For example, the tourist was allowed to continue his journey and enter Tunisia or Libya within five minutes. Whether they were Libyan or Tunisian, those tourists did not have to change the number plate. Nor did Arab tourists visiting any of the two countries had to do so. Moreover, the area was provided with several traffic lanes to allow more than 13,000 motorists to pass smoothly every day. Tourists, who would return without their cars, which had been earlier registered at the check-point, are not treated suspiciously. All that they had to do was to explain the reasons behind the new situation. **The border check-point in Ras Gedir gained more popularity in both sides because Libyan and Tunisian officials were sitting next to each other to receive tourists there. **It goes without saying that easing the people's sufferings at the Egyptian crossing border of Salloum is the responsibility of the Egyptian Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Administrative Development and the Ministry of Tourism. Taking into consideration that the summer season has just unfolded, the Cabinet should live up to the situation and examine this problem immediately. New regulations and rules should be issued at once to allow cars bound for Egypt or Libya to pass unhindered without causing any inconveniences to the passengers. Without these measures, Egypt will find it too difficult to persuade bigger number of Libyan tourists to spend the summer in their second home country.**The Egyptian Minister of Tourism, Zoheir Garranah, was determined to dispatch the inspection team after he realised that his Ministry had disappointing speculations over growing number of Libyan tourists in Egypt. The Minister became sure that outrageous measures and mistreatment at Salloum check-point were the main reasons behind this unhappy result. **It is regretful that although the inspection team submitted its report a year ago, the grim circumstances at Salloum check-point remained unchanged --- if not getting worse. Perhaps, the team's recommendations were thrown in the dustbin. Preposterous excuses associated with security, acts of smuggling, etc, are traditionally and unreasonably provided when voices appealing for less provocative measures in Salloum became loud. **It is no exaggeration that the Egyptian private sector's returns will be estimated at $1 billion when one million Libyan tourists are encouraged to visit Egypt. This huge income will also lead to a remarkable increase in tax revenues; about 200,000 jobs will be offered in the domestic market as well. **The big returns the private sector in Egypt are denied overwhelmed my thought when I was reading last week's newspapers, which published that President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi signed an agreement of strategic co-operation between their two countries. The agreement will encourage Libyans to increase their investment projects in Egypt to $10 billion within two years in the fields of agriculture, tourism, real estate, energy and electricity. Reading this piece of news, I have hopes that the agreement would encourage the Egyptians to eliminate the outrageous inspection measures at Salloum and convince Libyan tourists that they are warmly welcomed in Egypt. Offering hospitality and warm welcome will not cost the Egyptian government a penny. Although this project does not need investment money at all, hospitality in Salloum will yield $1 billion every year and provide 200,000 jobs. The question now is: Who is ready to take the initiative and step forward to carry out this project? The invitation is extended to the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Administrative Development and the Ministry of Tourism.