Hurghada Hosts Annual Gathering of 350 Global Tourism Companies

Egyptian city of Hurghada has witnessed the gathering of representatives from 350 international tour operators.

The representatives were attending annual celebration organised by Franco Rosso SA, which chose Hurghada to host the event for this year.

In a recent statement, Egyptian tourism minister Hisham Zaazou said he hopes his efforts would return annual tourism revenues — a pillar of the economy — to pre-uprising, peak levels of 2009 and 2010 of $12.5 billion, despite what he calls alarmist media coverage of Egypt.

“At the end of the winter season which is April 2015, not the end of 2015, we should record good numbers of the come-back and the full revival of the tourism industry,” he said.

Once peaking at $12.5 billion (£7.7 billion) a year, tourism revenues were less than half that in 2013 at $5.9 billion as upheaval in the run up to the army’s ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi put off foreign visitors.

More than 14.7 million tourists visited Egypt in 2010, dropping to 9.8 million in 2011. They picked up the following year to 11.5 million but shrank back to 9.5 million last year.

Tourist revenue in the first half of 2014 was $3 billion, down 25 percent from the same period a year earlier, the government said in August. Government figures had shown tourism contributed 11.3 percent of GDP and 14.4 percent of foreign currency revenues.