Egypt’s total tourism revenues in 2019 recorded about $16.4 bn, and is expected to jump to $29.7bn over the next five years, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13%, according to Danielle Curtis’s, exhibition director of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) in Middle East, comment on the latest ATM report.
She said that Egypt is considered a major tourism market for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC), explaining that Egypt received 1.84 million visitors in 2019.
Curtis added that the number of the visitors coming to Egypt from the GCC, is expected to witness a remarkable growth, expecting the total number of visitors coming to Egypt from the GCC to reach 2.64 million by 2024.
According to the ATM report, Egypt will witness a noticeable increase in the volume of average GCC tourist spending in 2020, forecasting it to reach $2.36bn, an increase of 11% compared to 2019. It expected that the tourists coming from Saudi Arabia will drive this growth.
The ATM said that the number of trips coming from Saudi Arabia reached 1,410 trips in 2019. The report also forecasted the number of visitors coming from Saudi Arabia to reach 1.8 million by 2024, with a CAGR of 5%, according to Colliers International, official research partner for ATM.
The ATM said that Germany is the number one tourist exporter for Egypt, with a total of 2.48 million visitors in 2019, a hike of 46% compared to 2018, and with a total average spending of $1.22bn.
“Egypt is expected to receive about 2.9 million German visitors by 2024, with an average spending of about $ 2.18 bn,” according to the report.
While Ukraine comes in second place after Germany, in which the number of Ukraine tourists who visited Egypt in 2019 reached 1.49 million, an increase of 50% compared to 2018, the report attributed this increase to the availability of direct flights between Ukraine and Egypt who have resumed after a hiatus of nearly two years.
“At the level of geographical regions, the European continent is the largest source of tourists to Egypt with 6.2 million tourists in 2018, and this number is expected to rise to 9.1 million in 2022,” the report said.
The report showed that GCC countries record one of the highest growth rates in terms of number of visors coming to Egypt.
Curtis said that during the past 12 months, Egypt’s tourism industry has witnessed a remarkable growth, evidencing that the number of visitors increased by 57.5%, reaching 17.8 million visitors in 2019, up from only 11.3 million in 2018.
She added that this increase is driven by a decrease in the Egyptian pound exchange rate and the government’s incentives for chartered airlines operating for international flights.
