Egyptian Tourism Revenues seen $26 billion in 2020 – Minister

Egypt is planning to revive its tourism industry, expecting revenues from tourism to increase to US$26 billion by 2020, minister of tourism Khaled Ramy said in a press statement on Tuesday.

Twenty million tourists are seen to visit Egypt in 2020, the statement added.

The statement was released during a meeting held between Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab and Minister of Tourism on Tuesday to discuss the ministry’s strategy and its plans to carry out it.

 Last week, Khaled Ramy announced that Egypt welcomed the news that there were three percent more tourists in the first quarter of 2015 than in the same period of the previous year, while hotel reservations for the summer season were up 15% compared to the previous year.

The statement showed that the rate of tourism sector’s labor is 12.6 % of Egyptian labor and the volume of tourism’s investment in services sector is 5.5%.

Egypt’s tourism sector has seen a relative recovery in the past year, after the country was hit hard by protests and regime change in 2011 and again in 2013.

The sector has been making a gradual recovery, with Egypt receiving 9.9 million tourists in 2014, up from 9.5 million in 2013.