Welcome to Egypt?

Egypt may be in the thick of popular protests to unseat its long-term president Hosni Mubarak but this fact appears to have escaped its tourism office. On Monday, the Egyptian tourism office displayed a woeful sense of timing by issuing a press release brightly informing recipients that “Egypt Tourism starts 2011 on a splendid note with its participation in the South Asia Travel and Tour Expo.” It added that it was about to “unveil plans highlighting new, exciting facets of Egypt as a tourism destination”. Would those “new, exciting facets” include headline-grabbing street riots in Cairo?