An Egyptian lawmaker has referred to as for the ticketing system on the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Cairo to be overhauled, claiming that the present method locations Egyptian residents in a “secondary class”.
Talking on Friday, GEM’s chief govt Ahmed Ghoneim confirmed that the museum had exceeded its day by day restrict of 20,000 tickets, as an alternative promoting 27,000. Following hypothesis on-line, he confirmed that the museum does allocate tickets individually to each Egyptians and foreigners, however mentioned the ratio would by no means exceed 60% and 40% in both course.
Freddy Elbaiady, a member of parliament and the vice chairman of the Egyptian Social Democratic Occasion, advised The Artwork Newspaper: “What issues now’s that the problem is systematically corrected. Any quota system—regardless of the percentages—needs to be cancelled altogether. Egyptians should not be positioned in a secondary class when accessing their very own heritage.”
On 16 November, Elbaiady submitted a proper request to take away the quota. In a Fb publish, he mentioned: “I’ve no drawback in any respect {that a} overseas vacationer pays for a costlier ticket, and with arduous forex, which is regular and exists in most international locations of the world. However in all the world [there] isn’t a single nation that claims to its residents: ‘Sorry, there is no such thing as a place for Egyptians, now we have completed your share!’”.
He advised The Artwork Newspaper: “The museum hasn’t responded to me but however apparently there may be nonetheless a quota for Egyptian guests…I’ll proceed to press firmly till that is resolved in a transparent, clear and everlasting method.”
In an Instagram publish on 15 November GEM addressed its customer move, and asserted its dedication to providing a “distinguished customer expertise that displays its world standing”. It additionally introduced plans to implement a pre-booking system with designated entry time slots, which got here into use on 16 November. The museum introduced that from 1 December on-line reserving will change into the “unique technique” for buying entry tickets all through the week.
Tickets for the museum can at present be booked on-line for sure dates. The worth for an Egyptian grownup is EGP 200 (£3.20), whereas an grownup ticket for “Arabs or different nationalities” is 1,450 EGP (£23.20).
The GEM is located among the many Giza advanced of pyramids, round 45 minutes from central Cairo. It was first proposed in 1992 by the previous Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, because the century-old Egyptian Museum in Cairo’s Tahrir Sq. was unable to deal with the variety of vacationers.
The museum is run as a personal/public partnership, with the Egyptian firm Hassan Allam in cost by way of its subsidiary, Legacy, and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities answerable for the artefacts.
GEM was contacted for remark.
