The COVID-19 crisis brought Egypt’s tourism almost to a halt over the past two years, but after the Ministry of Tourism embarked on a strategic plan to restructure the affiliated sector comprising institutional and providing ambitious initiatives, increasing investment, and updating promotion mechanisms, the industry has been recovered.
Earlier, the country has reopened its seaside resorts of Sharm El-Sheikh, Hurghada, and Marsa Matrouh to international flights and foreign tourists since July, after a three-month halt over the coronavirus novel.
In the same context, Egypt’s popular tourist resorts Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh have been receiving more international flights from Eastern Europe recently after the country reopened its airspace to regular flights last summer.
Another positive note in 2021 was the return of Russian tourists to Sharm El-Sheikh, tourism expert said, adding that these were often high-spending visitors.
In February, the Russian Federation authorities announced the resumption of flights to Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada after a five-year hiatus.
It's worth noting that Russia banned such flights following the crash of their passenger jet in Sinai at the end of 2015, and its decision to resume them has been long-awaited by the tourism sector due to the importance of Russian tourists.
It is expected that the number of Russian travellers will now increase in Sharm El-Sheikh, which has suffered from the dwindling numbers of tourists, one of the Sinai resort’s most important markets.
According to Sky News Arabia, tourism expert Walid Batout said: "Indicators from the last year are very promising and demonstrate that Egypt is on the right track to tourism recovery."
El Batouty added that it is expected that the recovery will be turbulent during the next summer season in 2021, provided that the real recovery begins from the winter 2021-2022 season (that is from October/November 2021).
The number of tourists who visited the country during February increased by a rate of 60% compared to the same period last year, according to a report issued by Goldman Sachs.
The recent report by Goldman Sachs for Economic Studies optimistically predicted a recovery in Egypt’s tourism sector in the second half of 2021.
Moreover, the report added that Egypt has achieved remarkable success through its touristic reform program initiated in 2019.
On the other hand, Al-Borsa newspaper reported that from now until the end of 2020, a mere 2.2 million tourists will visit Egypt, generating an expected revenue of just US$360 million.
The domestic newspaper based this estimated plunge on the assumption that the current global coronavirus pandemic situation will continue as it is, deterring people from traveling.
Expectations indicate that Egypt will see about 200,000 tourists arrivals in November, generating US$60 million.
November estimates are higher than October and December, as it generally witnesses a higher number of tourists.
According to the report, nearly 150,000 tourists are expected to visit in December, generating about US$45 million.
It's worth mentioning that Egypt's tourism revenues have taken a significant hit due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, decreasing by 67.2% in 2020.
Ehab Abdel Aal, Treasurer of the Cultural Tourism Association, expected that the tourism sector will start to recover between May and June, but returning to 2019 levels depends largely on the pandemic’s progression.
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