Egypt warms up for winter tourism with strict safety measures and new all-inclusive experience of leisure, culture

CAIRO – 25 October 2021: As every year, Egypt is preparing to receive tourists from everywhere in the world for many of its resorts, known for being of a warm weather and charming nature over the course of the year, especially during winter.

Despite the hard circumstances of the pandemic, Egypt played a trump, resuming international flights last year after only few years of suspension during the pandemic and receiving Russian and British visitors in the Red Sea resorts after years of hiatus.

Russian and British tourists have been on top of visitors to Egypt, with the number of Russian tourists surpassing 3 million in 2014 only, representing more than 30 percent of all tourists that year.

This is before a significant drop in 2015 due to the regrettable Russian plane crash over Sinai.

At all levels, the crash was deeply mournful, and therefore Egypt has been keen that such incidents never happen again.

Over the course of the past years, Russian delegations have inspected the airports in Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada to check on the Egyptian measures applied to ensure the safety and security of tourists.

This included the biometric equipment installed in Egyptian airports and CCTV camera footage, as well as luggage inspection equipment.

After years of working, Egypt could receive Russian tourists to Cairo in 2018 and to the Egyptian Red Sea resorts only last August.

Also, in February last year, South Sinai’s Sharm el-Sheikh welcomed its first British charter flight since the 2015 incident.

Another obstacle on the road

Like the majority of countries, Egypt found itself forced to suspend international flights due to the pandemic but could resume them few months later amid strict preventive measures.

By leaps and bounds, Egypt could vaccinate all workers in the Red Sea resorts who are part of the tourism industry and also administered the first vaccine dose to tourism workers in the Upper Egyptian cities of Luxor and Aswan.

Egypt has continued to abide by strict measures. However, it has allowed hotels to run at full capacity, Reuters cited a tourism official as saying on Sunday.

Many inspection tours by officials such as the tourism and civil aviation ministers have included airports and tourist attractions to make sure that disinfection and preventive measures are adhered to.

Linking Luxor with Sharm El Sheikh

On Wednesday morning, EgyptAir flight No. "MS 202" took off from Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport, heading to Luxor International Airport, for the first time after a pause of six years.

EgyptAir will continue to operate once a week, subject to increase according to demand, at a unified round-trip ticket price, including taxes, of LE 1800.

This comes as Egypt aims to secure a comprehensive tourism experiment through integrating the cultural and leisure tourism so that tourists can visit more than one tourist destination while in Egypt.

This links the Nile Valley cities with the coastal tourist cities via domestic flight services.

The plane took off at 7 am from Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport, carrying 110 foreigners and Egyptians on board to visit the museums and archaeological sites in Luxor as well as to enjoy its charming atmosphere.

The new flight service was announced during a meeting between Tourism Minister Khaled El-Enany and Minister of Civil Aviation Mohamed Manar earlier this month.

This is the first time that this line has been operated since December 2015. It was operated at the request of the private tourism sector, the Egyptian Tourism Federation and the Egyptian Travel Agents Association.