Tourism declines dramatically since coup

Official statistics in Egypt have revealed that the number of tourists who visited the country in September is down by 69.7% over the previous year, when ousted President Mohamed Morsi was heading the government. Almost a million tourists visited Egypt in September 2012, compared with just 201,000 in September this year. Tourism is one of the worst-affected sectors since the coup at the beginning of July.

Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said that most of the tourists who did visit in September came from Western Europe, followed by those from the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

“The number of nights spent by tourists in Egypt during the period in question went down by 90.9 per cent,” CAPMAS stated in its monthly bulletin. It pointed out that the Middle East came top of the list in terms of the number of nights spent by tourists in the country, followed by Western Europeans and then North Americans. The number of Arabs visiting in September fell by 58.5 per cent, from 240,000 to 99,000.

Meanwhile, the interim president appointed by the army to run the country, at least nominally, has assured the Emir of Kuwait about the situation in Egypt. Adly Mansour was speaking to the editors of Egyptian newspapers in Kuwait for the third Arab-African summit. “We don’t live on aid,” he told the Emir, “but we are in a difficult situation and stage, as the last year was economically tough.”

According to Mansour, the situation in Egypt “improves day after day” and the government is working and trying to do all that it can. “There are no cabinet changes being considered,” he added.