Hisham Zazou

During the Mubarak era, in 2009, Zazou served as the first deputy of the minister of tourism.^[7] After the Egyptian uprising, he served as senior assistant to former tourism minister Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour.^[3] On 2 August 2012, Zazou began to serve as tourism minister in the cabinet of Hesham Qandil.^[2] Although Zazou submitted his resignation on 1 July 2013, it was announced by the state news agency MENA on 15 July that he would continue to serve as tourism minister in the cabinet of interim prime minister Hazem Al Beblawi.^[8] Zazou sworn in on 16 July.^[9]

Following a fatal attack in the Sinai Peninsula in August 2012, in which 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed by armed men who subsequently infiltrated into Israel and were killed by the Israel Air Force, Zazou denied that there was a negative impact on tourism following the attack, and said that tourism agencies did not cancel reservations and that he was personally calling them to make sure. Zazou stressed that tourists should feel secure in Egypt.^[1]

In June 2013, Zazou submitted his resignation in protest at President Morsi's appointment of a member of the Construction and Development party as governor of Luxor – this party being associated with the Jama'a al-Islamiya group, which had killed 62 tourists and local tourism-industry workers in the 1997 Luxor Massacre. Zazou's resignation placed him at the head of a mass protest from all quarters of the Egyptian tourism industry, a main source of foreign currency that is vital to the country's economy. Prime Minister Hisham Qandil "refused the resignation and asked him to stay at his post to review the situation".^[10] A few days later the new governor resigned instead.^[11]

However, he and four other ministers resigned from office on 1 July due to government's reaction to mass demonstrations in the country. Then prime minister Qandil refused to accept Zazou's resignation, however, and asked him to remain in the post.^[12]

• Media related to Hisham Zazou at Wikimedia Commons