The Egyptian Tourist Authority (ETA) has declared that the number of tourist arrivals in Egypt has increased by 20% as compared to the same period in the year 2016.
Inbound tourism declined in 2016 to 5.3 million tourists that marks a slump from 9.3 million in 2015 after Britain and Russia halted their flight on account of the fall if the Metro Jet airliner in October 2015. The ETA has started operating on two different scenarios.
Firstly, Russia continues to suspend its flights to Egypt.
On the other hand, Britain continues with its system of travel suspension to Sharm El Sheikh. In the year 2017, Egypt aims at reaching at least 7 million tourists. But, if both these nations continue their flights to Egypt, the ETA official said that the growth would be at 100% reaching up to 10.5 million tourists, up from 5.3 million last year.
The source also said that the improvement would not only be restricted to the number of tourists.
However, it would also consider the average spending per day. A member of the ETA named Tarek Adhama said that the recent presidential visit to the US and the rapprochement between the European leaders and Egypt would push the growth of the tourism sector.
Hisham Ali who is the head of the Tourism Investors Association in South Sinai said that the tourist inflow from Europe over the last few days was a bit better than the same period last year.
Ali went on to add that the tourism inflow from Germany is expected to increase during Easter, along with tourist inflows from the Arab nations, especially Jordan.
The source at the ETA mentioned that the government of Egypt is currently working towards attracting tourists from the East and South Asian countries, particularly from India and Japan.
He also said that Cairo, Sharm El Sheikh and the Red Sea are some of the most interesting destinations to tourists.
