Culture

Russia/Ukraine war: Tourism flow to Egypt expected to decline by 35%

Published

3 years ago

March 9, 2022

Egypt’s tourism sector is facing fallout due to the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Since Russia launched a full-scale military invasion into Ukraine on February 24, Egypt’s tourism sector – a major income generator source – has been negatively impacted.

According to Vice Chairman of the Tourism Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Moataz Sedky said Egyptian tourist destinations will likely be negatively impacted with tourism flow predicted to decline 35 percent.

The consequent Western sanctions imposed by European countries on Russia will lead to further deterioration of the Russian currency, Egypt Independent reports.

Sanctions also banned Russian transfers on the Swift system, thereby impacting financial transfers made by Russian tourists in Egypt.

Price hikes in the two countries due to the war will cause Russian and Ukrainian citizens to refrain from traveling abroad, he explained.

However he noted that as Egypt is a receiving market for tourism, it has the ability to adapt to events.

“If we go back a little, we will find that the Eastern European market, especially Russia, tourist flow was suspended for a period of six years to Egypt due to the accident of the Russian plane that crashed in Sinai on October 31, 2015,” said Sedky.

Egypt had succeeded back then in focusing on alternative and atypical markets, and the flow of tourism rose, approaching 13 million tourists, he explained.

The total number of tourism companies operating in the Russian and Ukrainian market does not exceed three or four companies, and only one or two chains of hotels, while the rest have other markets in which they operate – so the damage caused will only be to a limited number of Egyptian hotels, he added.

The decisions taken by the Hotel Establishments Chamber to host stranded tourists in Egypt because of war, whether they are from Ukraine or Russia, will positively impact Egypt’s reputation abroad, especially since the decision has been widely reported across western social media websites.

Culture

MultiChoice targets illegal streamers in crackdown against piracy

Published

9 hours ago

October 9, 2024

Isaac Dachen

Satellite television services provider, MultiChoice, says it is now targeting illegal streamers in its renewed crackdown against piracy.

Frikkie Jonker, the Anti-Piracy Director for Broadcast and Cybersecurity at MultiChoice-owned Irdeto, in a statement on Tuesday, says the company now uses tools to analyse illegal streams and identify the individuals responsible for streaming pirated DStv content.

Jonker stated that authorities knew who the end-users of these pirate streaming services were and warned that MultiChoice would consider legal action against them once criminal proceedings against such operators had been finalised.

“We are going after the whole ecosystem,” Jonker said in response to a question asking who MultiChoice is targeting.

“The company has carried out several raids in recent months, resulting in the arrest of several suspects allegedly involved in pirate streaming operations.

“Suspects include individuals allegedly distributing pirate streaming devices and login credentials for illegal streaming services like Waka TV.

“We have identification tools that we can use to analyse a stream of a pirate operation. By analysing it, we can say that the stream is using account number ‘123’, and then we take that account down,” Jonker said.

Jonker emphasised the importance of the crackdown, stating that the impact of pirate streaming services on platforms such as DStv Stream and Netflix is difficult to quantify due to their size.

Culture

Online streaming platform Spotify increases price for its Nigerian premium subscribers by 40%

Published

2 days ago

October 7, 2024

Isaac Dachen

Online audio streaming platform, Spotify, has announced an immediate increment in price for its premium subscribers in Nigeria by over 40%.

In a statement announcing the price increase, the platform said the hike in the fee would allow the team to continue innovating on its product offerings and features, providing users with the best experience.

In the notification, Spotify informed that starting from their billing date in November, their subscription price would change from ₦900/month to ₦1,300/month.

The latest price update puts the Premium subscription plan at ₦7,000 ($4.40) monthly, up from the initial ₦5,000 ($3.14), indicating a 40% rise.

The platform had in April, hiked its Premium Plan price from ₦4,400 ($2.76) to ₦5,000 ($3.14).

However, it added that users who do not wish to continue paying for Premium at the new price can cancel via their account page.

Spotify has also introduced Offline Backup to its Premium users globally, allowing them to listen to music offline without needing to download, with the
Offline Backup appearing in the Home feed when users are offline, and can listen to more than five songs once they have offline listening activated.