Cairo: Egypt’s tourism minister Hesham Zazou has threatened to resign after Islamist President Mohammad Mursi appointed a hardliner as governor of the ancient city of Luxor, said sources at the ministry.

“The minister is determined to resign if the new governor is not replaced,” a source at the Tourism Ministry told Gulf News. “The decision to appoint the new governor for Luxor has embarrassed the minister, who has been doing his best to revive the tourism industry in the past few months,” added the source on condition of anonymity.

Zazou, who has been tourism minister since August last year, had an emergency meeting with Prime Minister Hesham Qandil on Tuesday evening and “presented to him a file of the foreign media comment on Asa’ad’s appointment,” said the source referring to Adel Asa’ad, Luxor’s new governor.

Asa’ad belongs to the Jamaa Islamiya, a group accused of killing 62 people, mostly Western and Japanese tourists, in an attack in Luxor in 1997.

Luxor depends heavily on tourism, which has born the brunt of instability that has hit Egypt since a mass uprising led to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak as president more than two years ago.

“This decision spells dire consequences for the Egyptian tourism as a whole,” Zazou said in a press statement, referring to Asa’ad’s appointment. “I have decided to take the matter to the highest level,” added the minister before his reported meeting with the prime minister.

Hundreds of protesters, including tourism employees, began an open-ended strike in Luxor on Monday to protest Asa’ad’s appointment. On Tuesday, they blocked the way to the governor’s office, calling him a “terrorist”, according to witnesses.

Asa’ad, 62, was detained for one year following the assassination of former president Anwar Al Sadat by militants in 1981.

He said this week that fears about his political background are “unjustified”, adding that his main mission is to put tourism in Luxor back on track.

Heads of Egypt’s Chambers of Travel agencies have reportedly threatened to resign en masse unless the controversial governor is sacked.