In 2019, between 10,000-15,000 new hotel rooms have been made available to the visitors coming to Egypt, the chairman of the Egyptian Tourism Federation has recently disclosed.
Ahmed Al-Waseef in an interview with Reuters explained that a similar number is anticipated to be ready to welcome tourists in 2020.
For Egypt’s economy, the tourism sector is an essential source of livelihood for millions of citizens and a major source of foreign currency.
“According to the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), there is a surge in tourism figures. Revenues are higher than those of 2010, which were about $11.6 billion. We have recovered digitally but we can reach more. However, 2010 figures were not our goal,” Al-Waseef added.
The tourism revenues of Egypt increased by 28.6 percent in the fiscal year 2018-2019 to $12.6 billion, in comparison to $9.8 billion in the fiscal year 2017-2018, according to CBE data.
“In fact, there is a 30 percent increase in tourism revenues and numbers of tourists, which is proof of the tourism’s ability to recover. Tourists from North America, Germany and Europe, in general, are on the rise. We have begun working on returning back the ‘cultural tourism’ also.” Al-Waseef said.
In August, a government document seen by Reuters has shown that Egypt targets to grow the number of tourists visiting the country to 12 million in 2019-2020, up about 11 percent from the previous fiscal year. It is also aiming to increase the number of nights tourists spend in hotels to 127 million in 2019-2020 up from 113 million nights a year ago.
As the country experienced turbulence, tourism has sharply dropped as a result of huge mass protests – held in 2011 – calling for the ouster of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak, is one of Egypt’s most important sources of foreign currency.
The plunge in the number of tourists along with the mismanagement of government funds have compelled the government to look for new forms of revenue including taking out a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
