São Paulo – The number of foreign tourists that visited Egypt in June increased. According to data from the period released Wednesday (19th) by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (Capmas), 820,000 visitors came to the country, an increase of 4% over the 786,000 from June of last year.
Almost half of the foreign visitors came from countries of Eastern Europe, especially Russia. Western Europe sent approximately 31% of the total. From this region, Germany was the main country of origin. Other 13.4% of the total of tourists came from the Middle East.
The time spent in the country by the foreign visitors also increased. In June of this year, they stayed on average 9.5 nights in the Arab country. In June of last year, this number was 9 nights on average.
Tourism is one of the most important sectors of Egypt`s economy. It employs one in seven workers. In 2010, Egypt received 14.7 million foreigners, a level that wasn`t reached again due to the social uprising that resulted in the downfall of two presidents: Hosni Mubarak, in 2011, and Mohamed Morsi, in 2013.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
