Egypt Fastest Growing Tourist Destination

Egypt is the fastest growing tourist destination, while France is the most visited country, the United Nations World Tourism Organization revealed in its annual report on global travel and tourism.

The report showed that Egypt received about 8.5 million tourists during 2017, with an increase in the number of tourists up to 55.1%, compared to a year earlier, the Daily News Egypt reported.

Meanwhile, the UNWTO explained that the number of tourists in Egypt decreased in 2016, registering 5.2 million.

The report explained that this came as a result of the suspension of flights following the downing of a Russian charter jet and the turmoil following the uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.

According to the report, Egypt attracts tourists to the likes of Giza and Luxor, who come to discover the Great Pyramids and Sphinx.

Earlier in August, a government official told Reuters that Egypt's tourism revenues jumped 77% in the first half of 2018 to amount to $4.8 billion compared with the same period last year.

  Normal Shift

For his part, the former head of Egypt's Federation of Tourism Chambers, Elhamy Al-Zayat, told DNE that Egypt's ranking as the fastest-growing destination is normal due to the devastating blow that happened in 2016.

"When comparing the worst results of Egypt ever in tourism in 2016 to the results of this year, we will see that it is a great shift, but normal."

He explained that before the 2011 revolution, the tourism was growing fastest in 2010, but then after the 2011 revolution, the tourism suffered a lot, then it suffered the most in 2016, especially, when a Russian passenger plane crashed in Sinai in late October 2015 and all its passengers were killed.

Al-Zayat added that this return happened without efforts, pointing out that American tourists and those from France have only returned.

He continued that in order to restore the number of the tourists as it was in 2010, the government has to launch a marketing campaign for promoting tourism in Egypt.

Al-Zayat also explained that the map of the tourists coming to Egypt has changed, stating that before the 2011 revolution, Russian tourists were ranked number one on the touristic map followed by the British and German tourists.  

On the contrary, now the Germany is ranked number one followed by Britain and Ukraine in terms of the number of tourists.

Notably, Minister of Tourism Rania Al-Mashat said earlier that the number of tourists visiting Egypt jumped by 30% during the first quarter of 2018 compared to last year.

In UNWTO's list of the fastest-growing tourist destinations in 2017, Togo, San Marino, Vietnam, Georgia, Palestinian territories, Niue, Nepal, Israel and Northern Mariana Islands are ranked respectively after Egypt.