Inside Egypt’s tourism sector

CAIRO – 9 April 2019: Egypt witnessed a rise in tourism revenues during the first half of fiscal year 2018/2019, compared to the same period of 2017/2018, according the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) recent data.

CBE announced that Egypt's revenues from tourism during the first half of the current fiscal year increased 36.4 percent compared to the same period last year.

The surplus in the travel balance increased to about $5.4 billion, compared to about $3.8 billion, according to the data.

Regarding travel receipts, CBE noted that they reached about $6.8 billion during the first half of the current fiscal year, compared to $4.9 billion in the same period of the prior year.

Meanwhile, World Travel &Tourism Council (WTTC) stated earlier that tourists spent LE 218.1 billion (12.2 billion) in Egypt during 2018. It also expected the number of tourists to increase to 11.7 million during the current year.

The travel and tourism sector's contribution to the Egyptian gross domestic product (GDP) hit 11.9 percent of the total economy during 2018, according to WTTC.

The report elaborated that this contribution amounted to LE 528.7 billion ($29.6 billion), adding that the travel and tourism sector grew 16.5 percent during 2018.

In August, a government official told Reuters that Egypt’s tourism revenues jumped 77 percent in the first half of 2018 to amount to $4.8 billion, compared to the same period of the previous year.