Egyptian tourism revenues exceed $9B, surpassing 10M tourists
Baku, October 1, AZERTAC
Egypt's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Sherif Fathy, revealed that the country's tourism sector revenues have already surpassed $9 billion this year. Furthermore, the number of tourists visiting Egypt reached over 10 million by the end of last July, according to Egypt Today.
In an exclusive interview on the ON channel program "Kalima Akhira," the Minister described the Egyptian tourism performance this year as "very good," following a strong previous year which saw 15.8 million tourists and a 6% growth rate compared to the year before.
Minister Fathy emphasized that the Ministry now has a comprehensive, integrated action plan for tourism marketing. He asserted that reaching 30 million tourists annually "is not a dream, but an achievable goal."
To accommodate this ambitious growth, the Minister highlighted current efforts to expand capacity. Egypt currently has 235,000 hotel rooms, with hopes to add 9,000 new rooms before the end of the year. This growth is being driven by government incentives for investors, alongside the Holiday Home system, which allows residential units to be freely converted into hospitality units, significantly boosting hotel capacity.
The Ministry is also focused on attracting private sector involvement through the creation of an "Investment Opportunities Bank." Fathy stressed the importance of encouraging companies to organize more tourism events and festivals, particularly in Upper Egypt cities like Luxor and Aswan.
He noted that offering flight incentives has already led to a massive 160% increase in flights to Luxor and Aswan. The Minister expressed optimism about seeing summer festivals reinvigorate tourism activity in these two historically rich cities.
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