7.5 Million Tourists Visited the Egyptian Destination in the Past 11 Months, Up 55% on 2016
By Akram Medhat
Amid a relative recovery in inbound tourism to Egypt compared with periods of stagnation, the Egyptian tourist destination received around 779,000 tourists last November, up 56% on the same month of 2016. They spent 8.2 million tourist nights, an increase of 146%, marking the start of the winter tourism season with a positive improvement and an indicator that bodes well for the rest of the season.
The average tourist stay was about 10 nights, a decline compared with the other months of the second half of this year.
Comparison with November 2016, or even with 2015, is not the main yardstick for measuring positive rates, but these are continuing and encouraging signs of improvement. November 2015 marked the beginning of a complete slump, recording 559,000 tourists due to the absence of Russians from Egyptian tourist cities after President Putin announced, a week after the Russian plane crash on October 31 of the same year, a complete ban on flights between the two countries for an indefinite period.
This makes a more stable month, November 2014, which recorded 898,000 tourists, a better basis for a real comparison of growth rates, and the gap is therefore quite acceptable.
It is worth noting that November 2010 has so far been the best compared with the same month in other years, with 1.4 million tourist arrivals.
11-Month Total
Tourism statistics obtained exclusively by "Travel Yalla News" revealed that the total number of tourists arriving in Egypt from the beginning of 2017 until the end of last November reached 7.5 million, up 55% on the same period of 2016, thus coming relatively close to the stable rates achieved in the same period of 2015, which reached 8.9 million tourists.
Tourist nights reached about 76 million over the past 11 months, an increase of 160% over the same period of 2016, which recorded 29.3 million nights, approaching the 2015 rates before the Russian plane crisis, which stood at 82 million nights.
October remains the best month so far this year in terms of tourist arrivals to Egypt, with 826,000 tourists, and has even led all months since November 2015.
Table showing the monthly development of inbound tourism during 2017:
Month | Number of tourists |
|---|---|
January | 543,892 |
February | 539,065 |
March | 654,877 |
April | 715,956 |
May | 573,810 |
June | 532,955 |
July | 781,192 |
August | 819,619 |
September | 732,730 |
October | 825,970 |
November | 778,808 |
Geographic Breakdown of Tourists
Tourism traffic eased slightly last November compared with October across the various tourist source regions. Nevertheless, Europe maintained its share of tourist numbers with 494,000 arrivals, up 76% on November 2016, accounting for 63.5% of total inbound tourism to Egypt.
Asia outpaced Africa with 58,000 tourist arrivals, up 24%, raising its share to 7.5%. It was the only region to record an increase in numbers in November compared with last October, unlike the other regions.
Table showing the geographic breakdown of inbound tourism to Egypt in November 2017 compared with the same month last year:
Region | Number of tourists | Change | Share of total |
|---|---|---|---|
Europe | 494,410 | 76.4% | 63.5% |
Middle East | 140,409 | 24% | 18% |
Asia | 58,434 | 24% | 7.5% |
Africa | 54,060 | 51.3% | 6.9% |
The Americas | 30,075 | 37% | 3.9% |
Other | 1,420 | -7% | 0.2% |
Total | 778,808 | 56% | 100% |
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Egypt Received 826,000 Tourists Last October, Up 63%... Making It the Best Month of 2017
