Knight Frank, which is a global real estate consultancy company, announced in a report that Egypt has the second highest number of major hotels in Africa after South Africa.
The report stated that hotel supply levels vary greatly across Africa, where Morocco ranked third after Egypt with 153 hotels branded or chain hotels.
Furthermore, South Africa that has the largest number of major hotels, with 430, which is almost 30% of the continent’s chain hotels.
Meanwhile, the report stated that Tunisia is in fourth place with 103 hotels.
Concerning Egypt, the report stated that it has 300 established hotels and resorts across its major cities such as Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada.
“From a Middle Eastern perspective, we are beginning to see something of an uptick in the activities of renowned investors and developers building portfolios of properties across key hospitality hotspots, particularly Morocco and Egypt in North Africa, as well as emerging locations in sub-Saharan Africa,” the report said.
The report pointed to the new Fairmont Citystars Sharm El-Sheikh which is in the pipeline and due to open this year.
There are now various hotels in the process of launching new projects in Egypt, including the Marriott and Hilton.
The report stated the key performance indicators for 2017 by country revealed that Egypt had 55% occupancy rate in 2017. Meanwhile, it stated that the average daily rate (ADR) was $66.
The tourism sector is one of the most important sources of income for Egypt, as it now “represents 15% of GDP,” Egyptian Minister of Tourism Rania Al-Mashat announced last month on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market exhibition that took place in Dubai.
Egypt has many touristic destinations. Meanwhile, out of 25 cities, Egypt’s Hurghada ranked 21st on the list of top tourist destinations in the world in 2018, according to TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel and hotels website.
Noteworthy, Egypt witnessed a significant drop in tourist arrivals following the downing of the Russian plane in October 2015, already in decline after the 2011 revolution. Consequently, the number of tourist arrivals dropped from 14.7 million people in 2010 to 5.4 million by 2016, with annual revenue falling from $12.5bn to $3.8bn.
One of the main drivers behind the decline in tourist arrivals was the drop in Russian tourists, whose share of foreign arrivals fell from 68% in 2015 to 13% by mid-2016.
But in 2018, after the resumption of flights between Moscow and Cairo last April, tourism started to gain pace. Al-Mashat previously announced that the number of tourists visiting Egypt jumped by 30% during the first quarter of 2018 compared to last year.
