São Paulo – This Tuesday (22nd) in Cairo, the Egyptian minister of Tourism, Hisham Zaazou, said tourist arrivals were up 17% and tourism revenues were up 13% in 2012 from 2011. In 2011, popular protests led the former president Hosni Mubarak to step down, and scared away international visitors.
In 2012, there were 11.4 million tourist arrivals in Egypt, resulting in US$ 9.9 billion in revenues. According to information from news agency Reuters, in 2011 Egypt received 9.8 million visitors and tourism revenues amounted to US$ 8.8 billion.
In 2010, prior to the popular uprising that brought down Mubarak’s regime, Egypt received 14.5 million tourists and posted US$ 12.5 billion worth of tourism revenues. At that time, the industry accounted for 11% of all economic activity in the country, and 25% of all foreign-currency revenues.
“We did better than anyone expected despite the problems we had,” said Zaazou, according to Reuters. In late 2012, the country was stirred by demonstrations again, after president Mohamed Morsi, elected in June 2012, expanded his own powers by decree.
Despite the increased tourist inflow, the minister of Tourism said tourist inflow last year was down 22% from 2010, and revenues were down 25%. Still, Zaazou foretells that the industry should see a new growth cycle in 2013. “We can move close to figures of 2010 by the end of 2013. We hope to pave the way for a comeback,” he said, according to Reuters.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
