The number of tourists visiting Egypt increased by 30.8 percent in April over the same month last year, a government agency said Wednesday.
This April, 1.05 million visited Egypt, an increase of 800,000 over last year, but still falling short of the 1.2 million who visited in April 2010, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobility and Statistics monthly tourism report.
The agency attributed the increase to relative stability compared with the same period in 2011.
Western Europeans comprised the largest portion of tourists visiting the country in April, followed by Eastern Europeans. The number of Arab tourists increased to 175,000 from 147,000 in April 2011 — an increase of 19.6 percent.
Tourism Minister Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour said he anticipates a boom in tourism on 12 June, after the prime minister made a decree to facilitate visa procedures for certain nationalities.
The prime minister has decreed that tourist groups from Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, China and India can now obtain visas upon entry, with their travel agents bearing the responsibility that they leave in the time specified.
Groups from Russia will be exempted from fees for three months, starting on 1 June and ending on 31 August this year.
Edited translation from MENA
