Egypt's tourism 'winter season' dead, sector to rehabilitate in March: businessman

CAIRO – 15 November 2020: Member of Tourism Investors in South Sinai Association Atef Abdel Latif told Al Watan newspaper Sunday that the winter season "is dead" because of the rise in COVID-19 infections in Europe, and that foreign tourism is expected to rehabilitate in March after the release of vaccines.

The businessman explains that tourists from Germany, UK, Italy, France and Spain are not able to leave their countries due to the lockdown. As for domestic tourism, it has remarkably declined since the academic year began mid-October.

Abdel Latif estimates the occupancy rates in Egyptian hotels will be very high in the last quarter of 2021.

He added that the occupancy rates of Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada hotels are currently 20 percent of the 50 percent designated by the Ministry of Tourism and Archeology.

The businessman pointed out that 90 percent of tourists in Egypt are Ukrainian, and that many of the hotels that resumed work in Hurghada, Marsa Alam, and Sharm El Sheikh late in June, are now closed. Throughout that period, 400,000 foreign tourists spent their holidays in Egypt, and none of them showed symptoms before leaving given the preventive measures applied.   

World Travel &Tourism Council (WTTC) issued a report in March 2019 revealing that the travel and tourism sector's contribution to the Egyptian gross domestic product (GDP) hit 11.9 percent of the total economy during 2018.
 

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.
 

The sector provided 2.48 million jobs, representing 9.5 percent of total employment, with expectations to jump to 3.222 million in 2029.