A handful of tourists take photos of the great Egyptian pyramids.<\/p>\n
After 18 months of travel restrictions, tourists can once enjoy the beauty of ancient tombs.<\/p>\n
Tourism accounts for 9% of the country’s GDP, but according to the tourism ministry, less than a quarter of the usual number of tourists visited Egypt in 2020 – signaling a 55% fall in GDP.<\/p>\n
The industry had already suffered from instability in the country following the 2011 political unrest.<\/p>\n
But since the beginning of 2021, authorities have started to regain hope.<\/p>\n
The government made the vaccination of tourism workers in the South Sinai and the Red Sea governorates a top priority – that represents about 2 million people given the vaccine in the country’s most visited resorts.<\/p>\n
COVID-19 restrictions for tourists are also relatively light: a single negative PCR test upon arrival has been requested since July 2020.<\/p>\n
“Tourism is starting to recover. If we look at the pyramid or the Egyptian Museum, we will find a very large occupancy rate, whether from internal or external tourism, especially after receiving Russian tourism we began to see very large occupancy rate from external tourism in Sharm El-Sheikh, Hurghada and also Marsa Alam,” says Islam Fares, Director general of the union of Arab tourist guides.<\/p>\n
Ministry of Tourism statistics show a noticeable increase in tourist numbers: since the beginning of 2021, Egypt has welcomed 300,000 tourists every month.<\/p>\n
By April, this figure rose to more than half a million a month, around 50% of visitors pre-pandemic.<\/p>\n
“We look forward in the second half of 2020 (2021), and after vaccinations began around the world and the arrival of Russian tourism at Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada airports, to recover a little bit until we reach the normal rates for the tourism sector,” says Fares.<\/p>\n
In early August, Russia resumed flights to Egyptian Red Sea resorts, ending a ban that had lasted almost six years.<\/p>\n
Moscow had banned direct flights to Egypt after the 2015 bombing of a Russian airliner shortly after it took off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board.<\/p>\n
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