Egypt receives 1M German tourists in 11 months

CAIRO – 18 November 2017: Egypt received more than one million German tourists between January and November 2017, Egyptian tourism consultant in Germany Mohamed Abdel-Gabbar said Saturday.

He added that reservations for this winter season have surpassed 90 percent, compared to last year. Abdel-Gabbar said that there are 190 weekly trips from Germany to Egypt, which reflects the Germans’ desire to visit the country.

He stated that Egypt’s tourism office in Germany is intensifying its efforts to boost the number of German tourists coming to Egypt, adding that there is cooperation with tour operators in Germany to execute a promotional campaign that will help attract more German tourists.

The tourism sector has been struggling ever since the 25 January Revolution of 2011 and it was recently hit by the downing of a Russian airliner over Sinai in late 2015, which resulted in a Russian and UK travel ban to the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

However, tourism has been picking up recently; especially that Egypt has now become a cheaper destination for many tourists around the world after floating the local currency.

Tourism revenues jumped 211.8 per cent year-on-year to $5.3 billion in the first nine months of 2017, compared to $1.7 billion the year before.

The number of tourists who visited Egypt in that time jumped 55.3 per cent to 5.9 million, with European visitors reaching 3.2 million, an 85 per cent increase from the previous year.

Hilton Worldwide announced last week that it aims to increase the number of hotel rooms it manages in Egypt by 40 percent by the end of 2022.