Egypt: Tourism Sector Revenues Shrink 21.6 Percent

Egypt: Tourism Sector Revenues Shrink 21.6 Percent

Egyptian tourism revenues have declined by 21.6 percent during the last fiscal year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the country's central bank has said.

About 2.3 million Egyptian citizens also lost their jobs amid the pandemic during the fourth quarter of the fiscal year.

A report by the Central Bank of Egypt said that tourism and travel receipts recorded $9.85 billion in sales during the last fiscal year, compared to about $12.57 billion during the previous fiscal year, which was an all-time high.

The repercussions of the outbreak negatively impacted Egypt's revenues from tourism, which were expected to continue to reach historical levels.

In January, Danielle Curtis, director of the Arabian Travel Market in the Middle East, said that tourism revenues in Egypt would jump to $29.7 billion over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 13 percent.

In a report for the Arabian Travel Market issued in January, Curtis said that Egypt is a major foreign market for Gulf Cooperation Council countries, as it received 1.84 million visitors from the region in 2019. The country is expected to achieve remarkable growth, bringing the total number of visitors arriving from the Gulf to 2.64 million by 2024, Curtis added.

Another report by