Egypt’s first quarter tourism revenue drops by 43%

Cairo: Egypt’s tourism revenues dropped 43 per cent in the first quarter of 2014 to $1.3 billion (Dh4.7 billion), Adela Ragab, the country’s economic adviser to the Minister of Tourism, said on Wednesday. The tourism sector, which has been damaged by the political instability that followed a popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, suffered another blow in February when a coach carrying Korean tourists was bombed by extremists. Ragab said around 15 countries issued travel warnings against Egypt after the incident, which contributed to a 30 per cent drop in the number of tourists in the first quarter to two million people.

The sector saw a 41 per cent drop in revenue last year to $5.9 billion compared to the year earlier after hundreds were killed in the violence that followed the army’s overthrow of President Mohammad Mursi in July.