18% increase in Gulf tourists heading to Egypt  

The number of tourists visiting Egypt from the Gulf States has increased by 18 per cent in the first quarter of this year, according to the Egyptian consulate in Saudi Arabia.

In a statement, Mustafa Badir, an advisor to the Cultural Attaché, said that the growth was mainly due to a rise in visitors from the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Badir added that the number of tourists from Saudi Arabia, in particular, reached 8.5 per cent last month, an increase on the February figure which stood at 5.3 per cent.

He pointed out that the rise was a result of targeted marketing campaigns. The Egyptian capital, Cairo, recorded the volume of Saudi visitors as 16.6 per cent, while in Luxor, Saudi visitors represented 12.6 per cent of travellers. In other areas, the volume stood at 8.9 per cent in Alexandria and 4.5 per cent in South Sinai, while Aswan reached 3.8 per cent.

A revolution in early 2011, a military coup in 2013, and a series of high-profile airline disasters, beginning with the downing of a Russian plane in Sharm El-Sheikh in October 2015, as well as the crash of an EgyptAir flight in May 2016 which resulted in a loss of confidence and shattered the industry that made up 11.4 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2015.

Egypt’s revenue from tourism, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), has plummeted from $14.7 million to $5.4 million in 2016.