CAIRO: Egypt expects to earn about $9 billion from tourism in 2011, down by about a third on a year earlier after many visitors were deterred by an uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February and unrest that followed, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Tourism is a major source of revenue for Egypt. Analysts say bookings for its beach resorts, mostly far from the turmoil, appear to have recovered faster than visits to areas in the center of the country where most pharaonic ruins are found.
"We ended up the year 2010 with revenue of $12.5 billion. This year so far we have had fluctuations in the number of visitors… We started the year with a drop of 80 percent, then it got better through the year," Hisham Zaazou, senior assistant to the tourism minister, told Reuters.
"We expect around 30 to 35 percent less revenue than last year, which means it is going to be around $3.5 billion to $4 billion less, so we are speaking about a figure around $9 billion," he added.
