The number of tourists arriving in Egypt during the third quarter of 2017 rose by 55 percent compared to the same period last year, Egypt’s official statistics bureau, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), said on Sunday.
The agency reported that the number of tourists exceeded 2.3 million in the surveyed period, compared to just over 1.5 million last year.
Indian tourists particularly increased during the past 9 months, reaching 66.356 visitors. Egypt’s Tourism Promotion Authority has recently raised their efforts to attract tourists from India, which according to the figures have started paying off.
According to an unnamed government official speaking with Reuters news agency in October, Egypt’s tourism revenues jumped 211.8 percent year-on-year to $5.3 billion in the first nine months of 2017.
Egypt’s economy has been struggling since the 2011 uprising, which ushered in a long period of political instability that drove away tourists and foreign investors.
The tourism sector, making up around 12 percent of the economy, was hit hard, particularly following the downing of a Russian passenger plane in October 2015, which killed all 224 people on board.
The country’s Cabinet created a plan in May 2016 aiming to attract 10 million tourists to Egypt by the end of 2017.
Tourism revenues in 2016 reached $3.4 billion.
