Declines prevail in Asian markets, and Australia is stable despite a 48% drop in tourist nights
China topped inbound tourism to Egypt from the countries of Asia last September, recording 6,389 tourists, an increase of 23% compared with the same month last year, who spent about 34,000 tourist nights. This is the highest rate of increase among the other main Asian markets, which saw collective declines in tourist traffic to Egypt, thus defying expectations that the fall in the yuan's exchange rate against the US dollar would affect tourist traffic from China.
According to Ministry of Tourism statistics, which Travel Yalla exclusively publishes, the number of Chinese tourists over the nine months from January to September 2015 rose by 99.5%, with 84,382 tourists arriving, compared with the same period of 2014.
India comes second among the major Asian source markets for tourism to Egypt, with 5,004 tourists arriving last September, but it recorded a 3% decline compared with the same month last year, while the nine-month total rose 27% to 53,761 tourists compared with the same period of 2014.
On the other hand, South Korea was the Asian market with the largest decline in tourist numbers, not only in September, when they fell 25% compared with September 2014, but also in the first nine months of this year, recording 8,393 tourists, down 24% compared with the same period of 2014.
Japan followed suit, recording a 24% fall in the number of tourists to Egypt in September, to 868 tourists, although the nine-month total for 2015 rose 44%, with Japanese arrivals reaching 12,390 tourists.
On another note, although Australia is a separate continent, the severe weakness of tourist traffic from it to Egypt has placed it within the geographic classification bloc of Asia and the Pacific. The number of Australian tourists arriving in Egypt reached 2,309 last September, a very slight increase of only 0.4% compared with the same month in 2014, so we consider it relatively stable, while tourist nights fell 48% to 13,480 nights, compared with about 26,000 tourist nights in September 2014, which means a sharp decline in the Australian tourist's average stay in Egypt.
In the first nine months of 2015 in total, Australia achieved a 13% increase in the number of its tourists to Egypt compared with the same period of 2014, recording 17,101 tourists.
New Zealand comes last as a source of tourist traffic to Egypt, recording 362 tourists last September, who spent 3,911 tourist nights, indicating that they are among the nationalities with the longest average stay in Egypt, exceeding 10 days. Over the nine months in total, it recorded 3,093 tourists, an increase of 13% over the same period of 2014.
A table showing the main source countries in Asia and Australia for tourism to Egypt during the period from January to September 2015:
Country | Number of tourists in 9 months | Change compared with the same period of 2014 | Number in September 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
China | 84,382 | 99.5% | 6,389 |
India | 53,761 | 27% | 5,004 |
Japan | 12,390 | 44% | 868 |
South Korea | 8,393 | -24% | 767 |
Australia | 17,101 | 13% | 2,309 |
