Head of Egypt's General Authority for Tourism Promotion Samy Mahmoud, said that Egypt received nine million tourists since the beginning of 2015.
Mahmoud delivered a speech on behalf of Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou during the opening session of a special meeting of the Federation of Arab Engineers' Supreme Council held in Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday.
The tourism official said that 17 million tourists were expected to visit Egypt in 2015, but lost some 9 million tourists this year.
Mahmoud added that Egypt monthly lost about LE2 billion because of terrorism's effects on the tourism sector.
The tourism official pointed out that as many as 4 million Egyptians work in the tourism sector that provides 12.6 per cent of total employment in Egypt.
Mahmoud said that the ministry launched a promotional campaign targeting 27 markets to restore the tourism movement.
Last year, 9.9 million tourists visited Egypt, a far cry from the 14.7 million who came in 2010, the year before the Arab Spring revolutions that convulsed the Middle East.
Annual visitor numbers slumped from a record of 14.7 million in 2010 to around 10 million since then, according to the UN's World Tourism Organization.
Tourism in Egypt accounts in total for about 13 per cent of the economy, according to a report by the World Travel and Tourism Council.
