Tourist Arrivals to Egypt Fall 69.7% in September – CAPMAS

The Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), Egypt’s official statistical agency, has registered a decrease of up to 69.7 per cent in the number of tourists visiting Egypt from around the world during September.

In its monthly tourism bulletin, CAPMAS said Egypt received almost 201.000 tourists in September, 69.7 percent less than the 994.000 it received for the same month of previous year.

The Egyptian tourism sector continues to be weighed by the current political unrest, according to CAPMAS’ report which has been released on Wednesday.

The tourists came mainly from Western Europe, followed the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

The report further noted that the number of tourist nights during the month of September dropped by 90.9%, adding that the Arab tourists have captured the lion’s share of the number of nights, followed Western Europe and then North America.

The number of Arab tourists visited Egypt during September fell by 58.5% to 99.000, compared to 240.000 for the same month of last year.

Arab tourists spent 596.000 nights in Egypt during the month of September, compared to 3.5 million for the same month a year earlier. The report said the average number of the nights spent by the Arab tourists hit around 3.8 during September, against 12.5 last year.

Egypt’s tourism sector has been heavily battered since the January 25 Revolution in 2011 and especially after the June 30. A number of overseas countries imposed a ban on tourist travel to Egypt and several travel agencies cancelled trips to the North African country due to unrest.