Egypt's revenues from the tourism sector jumped nearly by 77 percent, while the number of tourists to the country increased by about 41 percent.
The number of tourist arrivals during the first six months of this year rose to 5.061 million compared to 3.6 million in the same period of last year, increasing tourism revenues in the first half to 4.781 billion dollars, 77 percent up from the 2.7 billion dollars a year earlier.
The tourism sector is a key pillar of Egypt's economy, a source of income for millions of citizens and a major source of hard currency, but it has been severely affected by years of political turmoil following the 2011 revolution and some armed violence. Egyptian tourism also received a heavy blow when a Russian passenger plane crashed in Sinai in late October 2015 and all its passengers were killed.
The tourist traffic coming from the countries of Western Europe, Italy, Germany, and Ukraine is expected to increase during the fourth quarter of this year, and indicators show that the tourism sector could reach about nine billion dollars by the end of this year.
Source (al-Arabiya.Net, Edited)
