Relative stability in tourist arrivals in the first ten months of 2015, up 1.6% on 2014
Tourist nights fall 27%, and average stay hits its lowest level
8.3 million tourists visited Egypt from the start of the year before the Russian plane crash
By Akram Medhat, Travel Yalla journalist
Tourist arrivals to Egypt declined last October, according to the latest statistics issued by the Ministry of Tourism and published exclusively by "Travel Yalla". The number of tourists reached 909,000, down 9.3% compared with the same month of last year, 2014, which recorded the arrival of about one million tourists.
Compared with last September, October achieved a 13.4% increase in numbers, a positive indicator of the strength of the winter tourism season in Egypt before the Russian plane crash on October 31, following a period of relative calm in September, which is a transitional stage between the end of the summer season and the start of the winter season.
October of the peak year 2010 recorded the highest tourist turnout to Egypt, with the arrival of about 1.5 million tourists.
Tourist Nights
As for the nights tourists spent in Egypt last October, they also recorded a significant decline of 27.3%, reaching about 7.1 million tourist nights compared with 9.8 million nights in October 2014. The average tourist stay last month was 8.4 nights, the lowest compared with the previous nine months of 2015.
Geographical Breakdown of Tourists
Europe accounted for 75.3% of tourist arrivals to Egypt, with about 685,000 tourists last October, down 12% compared with the same month last year, which weighed on the decline in Egypt's total tourist traffic.
Asia achieved the highest growth rate in arrivals, at 28% compared with October 2014, although it accounts for only 4.2% of the total number of tourists arriving in Egypt.
The Ten Months
On the other hand, tourist arrivals to Egypt from January to October 2015 achieved relative stability in numbers, recording 8.3 million tourists who spent about 76.7 million tourist nights, an increase of 1.6% in numbers compared with the same period last year, which saw the arrival of about 8.2 million tourists.
The following table shows the development of tourist traffic from January to October 2015:
Month | Number of tourists |
|---|---|
January | 677,536 |
February | 640,179 |
March | 834,636 |
April | 923,884 |
May | 894,612 |
June | 820,016 |
July | 911,606 |
August | 915,213 |
September | 802,038 |
October | 909,437 |
Table showing the geographical breakdown of tourist arrivals to Egypt in October 2015 compared with the same month last year:
Region | Number of tourists | Change | Share of total |
|---|---|---|---|
Europe | 684,586 | - 11.8% | 75.28% |
Middle East | 117,808 | - 16% | 12.95% |
Africa | 39,130 | 26.7% | 4.3% |
Asia | 38,359 | 28.3% | 4.22% |
The Americas | 27,259 | 19% | 3% |
Other | 2,295 | - 5.5% | 0.25% |
Total | 909,437 | 100% |
