Egypt is the fastest growing tourist destination: UNWTO

CAIRO - 7 September 2018: Egypt has been announced as the fastest growing tourist destination in terms of year-over-year percentage increase of visitors according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)’s 2018 release on global travel and tourism.

The annual report showed that Egypt welcomed about 8.5 million tourists during 2017 with an increase in the number of tourists up to 55.1 percent compared with the same period of the previous year.

Luxor and Giza were on the top of Egypt’s most famous and well-known cities for tourists’ choice, according to the report.

France, however, was the highest voted country for tourists in 2017.

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 with the same period last year.

After the 2011 revolution, Egypt’s economy and tourism witnessed a sharp fall that affected the whole country; however, it started to recover during the past period according to economic and governmental statics. A comprehensive economic reform program was launched by the government that included floating the Egyptian pound.
Tourism sector, same as other economic critical sectors to the country, witnessed a gradual improvement.

According to the anonymous source cited by Reuters, the visitors’ numbers during the first half of 2018 jumped 41 percent from a year before to about 5 million. A total of 14.7 million people visited Egypt in 2010 before the uprising.

“Indicators suggest the sector will earn about $9 billion by the end of this year,” the official said, adding there were expectations of greater traffic from Western Europe, Italy, Germany and Ukraine towards the end of the year.

On Aug. 15, official statistics issued by the Red Sea governorate showed that the number of tourists who visited the cities of the Red Sea in July reached 505,710 tourists, an increase of more than 130,000 tourists compared to June.

This number included 125,141 tourists from Germany, 106,731 from Egypt, 36,000 from the Czech Republic, 24,000 from Poland, 24,000 from Britain, 17,000 from Ukraine, 16,500 from the Netherlands, 13,000 from Austria, 12,800 from Belgium, 12,000 from Slovakia, 11,000 from Belarus, 10,700 from Italy, 8,700 from France, and 8,000 from Switzerland.

Hotel occupancy rates in the Red Sea also increased in July to 74 percent up from 63 percent in June. It came as follows: 73.72 percent in Hurghada, 77.98 percent in Safaga, 60.56 percent in El Qoseir, and 73.63 percent in Marsa Alam.

British Thomas Cook, a tourism and aviation company, said that British tourism to Egypt has been seeing a massive boost thanks to the renewed faith in the country’s political security and stability since the beginning of this year.

Minister of Tourism Rania al-Mashat said earlier that the number of tourists visiting Egypt jumped by 30 percent during the first quarter of 2018 compared to last year.