Egypt’s Tourism Revenue Drops by 43% in Q1: Official

Egypt’s tourism revenues dropped 43 percent in the first quarter of 2014 to $1.3 billion, Adela Ragab, the country’s economic adviser to the Minister of Tourism, told Reuters on Wednesday.

The tourism sector, which has been damaged by the political instability that followed a popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, suffered another blow in February when a coach carrying Korean tourists was bombed by Islamist extremists.

Ragab said around 15 countries issued travel warnings against Egypt after the incident, which contributed to a 30 percent drop in the number of tourists in the first quarter to two million people.

The sector saw a 41 % drop in revenue last year to $5.9 billion compared to the year earlier after hundreds were killed in the violence that followed the army’s overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July.