www.mena.com Egypt wants to double the number of tourists that visit the country to 16 million during the next 10 years, an increase of 7.2 per cent a year, Tourism Minister Ahmed el-Maghrabi said. He said Egypt received 8 million tourists in 2004, a 32 per cent increase on 2003 when 6.04 milion tourists visited the country which boasts pharaonic ruins and Red Sea beaches. Maghrabi said doubling the number of visitors, a major source of hard currency for Egypt, would create 1.5 million new job opportunities, the official Middle East News Agency quoted the minister as telling a parliamentary committee.
He said tourists spent 88 million nights in Egypt in 2004 and generated revenues of $6.5 billion, adding the government aimed to increase the number of tourist nights spent in the country to 160 million after 10 years.
Analysts say the number of tourist nights is a more representative method for measuring receipts from tourism. Tourism officials originally cut forecasts for the number of tourists visiting Egypt in 2004 to 7 million after bombings in Taba and two other beach resorts on the Sinai Peninsula in October.
The bombers targeted an area popular with Israelis. But analysts said the impact has been limited to the immediate area and, overall, was far less than expected overall. Maghrabi said plans to expand the tourism industry included developing Egypt's northern Mediterranean coast which has traditionally tended to draw Egyptian tourism rather than foreigners.
The plans also included boosting tourism in areas along the Nile neglected by visitors, such as Sohag south of the capital and developing river ports along the Nile south of Cairo. Nile cruises are particularly popular between Luxor and Aswan, both in the south. Alongside tourism, the country's other main revenue sources are oil exports, remittances from Egyptians working abroad and Suez Canal receipts |