According to a report released by the Ministry of Planning, during the first nine months of the 2015/2016 fiscal year, Egyptian tourism trade has shrunk by 34 per cent.
Tourism revenues have been decreasing since the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak from the presidency and triggered widespread instability in the country, scaring both tourists and foreign investors away. More than 14.7 million tourists travelled to Egypt prior to the uprising, with that number falling to 9.8 million in 2011.
The report published by the ministry to track “economic performance indicators in the third quarter and the first nine months of the fiscal year 2015-2016” revealed a drop of 63.3 per cent in tourism revenues between January and March 2016, fetching USD 550 million.
According to the report, the tourism trade dropped to EGP 6.341 billion (approximately USD 714 million) in the first nine months of the current fiscal, compared to EGP 9.609 billion (approximately USD 1.08 billion) during the same period last year.
The report further pointed out an increase of 248 per cent in the total budget deficit to reach USD 3.64 billion in the first nine months of the last fiscal year, in addition to an increase of USD 30 million in the size of international reserves in March 2016 to reach around USD 16.56 billion.
According to the monthly bulletin released by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) last month, the most significant countries that influenced the rate of decline in tourist arrivals in August are Russia at 60 percent, followed by the United Kingdom at 17.5 per cent, Germany at 10.4 per cent and Poland at 3.8 per cent.
“The government is working to increase the volume of tourism in traditional, emerging, and Arab Markets,” the report stated, adding that “green tourism” is being encouraged.
