Egypt’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Khaled El-Anani has revealed that the country received about 3.7 million tourists in 2020 that brought in an average of $4.1bn in revenues.
He added that, between the resumption of inbound tourism on 1 July 2020 and the end of December, Egypt received 1.4 million tourists.
The resumption of inbound flights took place after the closure of all airports across the country, as part of the Egyptian Government’s efforts to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The minister’s remarks came during a speech before the House of Representatives’ General Assembly, which was held on Thursday.
El-Anani indicated that the antiquities sector’s debts reached EGP 7bn, but that the tourism sector saw revenues rise to EGP 1bn in 2020. This reflects a significant increase on the EGP 22m the country earned prior to 2016.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism revenues decreased by more than 90%, to reach just EGP 110m.
El-Anani said that the coronavirus pandemic is the largest crisis to have affected the sector, and highlighted that the government has taken several measures to support the country’s tourism sector.
Many facilities have also been provided to tourism companies and hotels, on the condition that workers are not to be laid off.
