The Sphinx in Egypt is one of the world’s premier tourist spots. Here is how it looks in a typical tourist photo:

Makes you want to visit, doesn’t it?

And here is another pic of what you are more likely to see:

What a difference. It is between expecting to see a wonder of the world and but seeing a barely maintained slab of stone while sitting in baking heat, being accosted by hawkers and wondering why you ever came all the way to Egypt to see the sphinx when you could have see a nicer version in Las Vegas:

So where is the business angle in all this? Simple. If Egypt wants to make attract more tourists, they  have to take better care of their monuments. Otherwise people will start to think the Las Vegas version is the real version. I have already heard anecdotes about people who have visited Vegas and then visited Paris remark on how ‘large the French Eiffel tower is’. They take the Vegas copy as the reference point.