UK tourist arrivals to Egypt up 20%: ambassador

CAIRO – 19 June 2017: British tourist arrivals to Egypt jumped 20 percent year-on-year in the first four months of 2017, British Ambassador to Cairo John Casson told Egypt Today Monday.

In 2016, over 230,000 British tourists visited Egypt, making the United Kingdom the third largest source of tourism for the country after Germany and Ukraine, Casson said.

“We worked hard to have more flights to Hurghada and Marsa Alam, and now we have 40 direct flights a week from Britain to the whole of Egypt,” the ambassador noted.

Regarding restoring British flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, Casson said progress is being made and said he was optimistic about what the new U.K. government could do. “This is a number one priority issue for us and we will resolve it as fast as we can,” he said.

Talking about the British investments, Casson said, “there are rivers of U.K. investments in Egypt,” adding that some companies, such as giant oil and gas company BP, are injecting money into Egypt more than anywhere else in the world.

“We believe Egypt is opening a new chapter for investors, especially after reform measures such as the Egyptian pound flotation and adopting the New Investment Law,” Casson added.

A delegation of 15-20 British companies working in the sectors of infrastructure, finance, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, education and oil and gas met Minister of Investment Sahar Nasr this week to learn more about investment reforms, according to Casson.

The U.K. and Egypt are strategic economic partners with $2 billion of bilateral trade each year and $30.5 billion in British investments in Egypt since 2011.