Ramses II is widely regarded as the greatest, most famous, most iconic warrior king in the history of ancient Egypt. Whether in Charlton Heston’s 1956 classic "The Ten Commandments," Disney’s "The Prince of Egypt" or Ridley’s Scott’s less than mesmerising "Exodus," Ramses has always been Hollywood’s choice when it comes to telling the story of Moses’ struggle in Egypt.
So you’d think that the Ramessuem, a memorial temple created solely for the purpose of honoring the great king, within the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor, a place known as the world’s largest open air museum, would be teeming with tourists. But a recent visit in late January – considered Luxor’s high season – proved otherwise, as a total of zero people could be found at the temple, which has an emptiness that is at times eerie as the occasional breeze rattles through the massive columns and gargantuan bust of Ramses II’s head and shoulders.
How could man of such legendary grandeur’s primary monument be empty? Perhaps Ramses II was a fraud? A self-gratifying liar who has been shunned by Egyptian society?
Or perhaps everything from the Valley of the Kings, where King Tut’s tomb was discovered, to the world famous Luxor and Karnak temples are deserted because tourism in Egypt is dead and has been in free fall since the 2011 revolution.
It’s the latter.
“You couldn’t even see the road,” Hag Saber, an elderly man working security at Valley of the Kings, said as he sipped on his tea and looked out at the vacant pavement leading up to the site’s tombs.
“There were hundreds of people and it was hard to even walk around the area, most of them were foreigners,” he added.
Mohamed, owner of Amon Hotel in Luxor’s west bank, blames the drop in tourism on the country's 2011 revolution.
“It’s this dirty revolution; we used to be fully booked at this time four years ago and now only 5 percent of our rooms are occupied, our guests were mostly foreigners and they are the ones that are afraid to visit now.”
The past four years have indeed been eventful in Egypt, as the country has seen four presidents, three regimes and two constitutions along with terrorist attacks, mass arrests and violent repression of protests. All this could have cost Egypt the tourism sector that was once so vital to its economy.
By the numbers .
In 2013, the president of Egypt’s hotel chamber noted that hotels in Luxor were down to 10 percent occupancy rates. Another BBC report in July 2013, just after the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi, stated that occupancy rates at temples and monuments had fallen to 4-5 percent from 70-80 percent before the revolution. More recently in August 2014, the Guardian reported that nationwide Egypt’s tourism revenues from ancient monuments, most of which are in Luxor, had fallen by 95 percent since 2011.
A passerby holding a camera while wandering through the east side of the city’s outdoor market loaded with souvenirs, spices and traditional cuisine will be begged by shop owners to take a picture of the empty streets and write a story for a newspaper about the dire situation.
For its part, the government of recently elected Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has launched a campaign to revitalize tourism. It has pushed Western governments to lift travel bans, revamped websites and pushed aggressive ad campaigns in countries like the United States. In fact, just a week ago it was reported that the Tourism Ministry was focusing on Luxor in particular, by working with facilities to have them reduce their prices by as much as 12 percent. The government is targeting 20 percent growth in tourism numbers by the end of 2015.
But the people of Luxor seem skeptical.
“I’m not sure what the government’s doing because the only places that seem to be getting tourist traffic are Red Sea destinations like Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh,” said Issam, a tour guide at the Valley of the Kings.
“Luxor and Aswan are the places that bring money directly to Egypt, these Red Sea spots usually just bring money to private business. I question the government’s motives,” he added.
One restaurant owner just a stone's throw away from the deserted Ramessuem lamented to himself as he looked off at the stunning monument on an eerily quiet afternoon.
“There’s no one at our restaurant, there’s no one at the monument, the whole city is deserted.”