Plan to increase tourism sector production to LE279B in 2020

CAIRO - 2 June 2019: The Egyptian government submitted Tuesday a plan to the Parliament, seeking to increase the tourism sector's production to LE279.4 billion at current prices in 2019/2020.The plan seeks to increase the average length visitors' stay.

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.

Moreover, 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.

WTTCreport 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.