Opening the way for yacht tourism in Egypt

CAIRO – 10 September 2018: Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism, under the direction of Dr Rania El-Mashat, is working towards enhancing the inflow of tourists to Egypt through an increased attention on yacht tourism.

In January, Major General Hesham Abo Sena confirmed that all developments needed to be made in the Red Sea Ports Authority is being dealt with quickly and effectively by the leadership. Abo Sena added that they have already begun developing the Sharm el-Sheikh yacht port and the port of the Royal Yacht in Suez.

Abo Sena added that the authorities also signed an agreement to establish and develop the container and cargo terminal at Safaga Port and transfer it to a major port in the Red Sea at a cost of $400 million on an area of 600 thousand square meters and the establishment of a station at Nuweiba port at a cost of $350 million to link the Arab Mashreq with the Arab Maghreb and Africa.

Moreover, Egypt’s Minister of Tourism announced that Egypt and Cyprus have reached an agreement on cruise tourism in March 2018 and that they have agreed to launch a joint campaign to promote tourism; they will have a program for a yacht tourism.

There are top recommended cruises places in Egypt like Luxor and Aswan, Hurghada red sea and el gouna.

The number of tourists in Egypt has dropped 4.5 percent from 2015, according to the Central Agency for Mobilization and Statistics (CAMPAS), however, in 2018, Egypt has started to regain its status as one of the top touristic destinations. To do this, Egypt is tailoring its touristic services to attract tourists from all over the world, including European tourists who were previously the reason for Egypt being on top of the touristic destination list.

In fact, the return of tourists to Egypt has been felt by other touristic destinations like Spain, who have seen the influx of British tourists drop by 5.6 percent since July 2017, according to The Independent.