Hotels in Alexandria and along the North Coast are anticipating a 100% occupancy rate in July and August, according to Ali El-Manasterly, Head of the Egyptian Travel Agents Association (ETAA) in Alexandria.
Talking to Daily News Egypt, El-Manasterly expressed his optimism that hotels in both regions will be fully booked during next two months as people gradually return to travel.
Gradual reopening of tourism meant that hotel operators could only have 25% capacity in domestic tourism for the first two weeks of re-opening at the end of May, before increasing this to 50% by 1 June. International tourism is set to make a gradual come back in July.
El-Manasterly mentioned that North Coast and Alexandria hotels that were operating at 25% during the Eid Al-Fitr holiday were almost fully booked during that period.
He revealed that to date, about 33 hotels in Alexandria and the North Coast have received the health and safety certificates allowing them to operate amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic.
According to Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities data, 232 hotels across Egypt have to date received the health and safety certificate. This came after verifying they have followed health guidelines outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO), and Egypt’s Ministry of Health.
On 14 June, Egypt announced that it will resume air traffic at all airports starting from 1 July amid preparations to resume foreign tourism in the three governorates with the lowest COVID-19 infections. These governorates were identified as South Sinai, the Red Sea, and Matrouh.
El-Manasterly added that several European countries, including Italy, Germany, Spain, and the Ukraine, have expressed their desire in allowing citizens to resume visits to Egypt.
“We decided to reopen tourism again after a lot of demand from different countries that we do so, these requests and demands were asking about the availability of receiving their tourists in Egypt,” he said.
