An official at the Association of Tourism Investors in the Red Sea said that there was stability in the occupancy rates of hotels during the current week, and there were no cancellations at tourist facilities on the back of the recent terrorist attack.
The occupancy rates in Hurghada hotels are currently ranging between 50% and 65% this week, which is expected to increase with the inflow of Egyptian families for summer vacation during the next two months, according to the official.
On the other hand, seven tourists of different nationalities had been stabbed by a person in Hurghada, killing two German tourists this week.
Meanwhile, the hotel capacity in the Red Sea governorate is about 35% of the working capacity operating in Egypt and represents about 45% of the revenues for the tourism sector, according to the Chamber of Tourism Establishments.
The official also stated that the handling of the crisis was very good, both in terms of media handling and the lack of conflicting statements by officials about the incident, with the emphasis that the incident is individual and happening in all places in the world in the recent period and not only Egypt, which is exposed to terrorism.
Nevertheless, the tourist traffic to Egypt declined last year to 4.5 million tourists, compared with 9.5 million tourists during the previous year—a decrease of 40%.
“We hope that the occupancy rate will improve from October 2017 until 2018, so that Egyptian tourism will recover, as many companies will start resuming their flights to various tourist destinations in Egypt,” the official said.
