Tourists, tourist nights increase in October YoY: CAPMAS

CAIRO – 22 November 2017: The number of tourists visiting Egypt in October 2017 increased year-on-year, reaching 826,000, compared to 506,000 last year. The number has also increased on a monthly basis from 723,000 in September 2017, figures from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) showed Wednesday.

Figures further showed that the number of tourist nights has increased in October 2017 to nearly 8.1 million, compared to 33 million in the same month last year, whereas they stood at 9.6 million in September 2017.

Meanwhile, occupancy rates in April 2017 increased year-on-year to 45.2 percent, up from 20 percent a year earlier, CAPMAS said.

The tourism sector has been struggling ever since the 25 January Revolution of 2011 and it was recently hit by the downing of a Russian airliner over Sinai in late 2015, which resulted in a Russian and UK travel ban to the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

However, tourism has been picking up recently; especially that Egypt has now become a cheaper destination for many tourists around the world after floating the local currency.

Tourism revenues jumped 211.8 per cent year-on-year to $5.3 billion in the first nine months of 2017, compared to $1.7 billion the year before.

The number of tourists who visited Egypt in that time jumped 55.3 per cent to 5.9 million, with European visitors reaching 3.2 million, an 85 per cent increase from the previous year.

Hilton Worldwide announced recently that it aims to increase the number of hotel rooms it manages in Egypt by 40 percent by the end of 2022.