Using GIS Techniques for Conference Tourism Management: A Case Study of World Youth Forum - Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt

Egypt works to implement the tourism sector's development vision: Egypt is a sustainable and attractive tourist destination at the regional and international levels, as well as an important supporter of the national economy and the United Nations' goals for sustainable growth (SDG 2030). In 2010, Egypt’s tourism sector is the largest in North Africa. Expectations for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2022 are reaching $ 483 billion. Moreover, tourism’s overall economic impact is expected to be $91,4 billion. The main elements that push tourism to success depend on the ability to sufficiently develop, manage and market the tourism facilities and activities. Therefore, there is a need to invest in the tourism industry and develop it to meet international standards. Egypt in the last 5 years was oriented to hold and host many conferences like the Youth Conferences, Misr can, and Comesa, etc… Egypt in 2017 hosted around 3000 visitors to attend the World Youth Forum WYF in Sharm El-Sheikh. In 2018, Egypt decided to invite more than 5500 participants. But the problem appeared as a lack of a system of managing, analysing, and reporting to the decision maker with the whole image. The system has to track the visitors since their arrival at Sharm El-Sheikh international airport till their check-in at hotels and attending the conference halls etc… The research objective is to develop a methodological framework to manage any conference tourism with its whole events while creating a connection between the tourists participating in such events and the Vector data created by the GIS tools, making use of the prototype used to manage the events that occurred in the WYF 2018. The research questions are focusing on How to create a loyal participant by exceeding his/her imagination due to using GIS? How to track our foreign guests to take care of them during their visit? What are the required features for the database to support the decision-taker? The research mainly is divided into three sections; as first is an overview of conference tourism and its relation to GIS, second analyzing the case study which focused on creating the full vector data taken from the registration web page filled by the participants then linking the data mentioned before with the aviation team, transportation types, accommodation categories, IDs codes, given gifts and Halls capacity, third the results which refer to the frame of developing the technical reports of the decision makers during the event.