Egypt focuses on Arab markets to revive tourism targets

Yehia Rashed, Egypt’s minister of tourism said: “The Arab market represents one of the most significant markets exporting tourism to Egypt. This is due to several reasons, most importantly because of the proximity to many Arab countries and similarity of the language and traditions, which allows Arabs to feel like they’re in their second home when in Egypt."
The ministry and the tourism authority were at this week’s Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.
“Arab tourism to Egypt in 2016 represented 36.3 percent of the total tourist traffic to Egypt, which is more than one third of the total traffic,” Rashed said.
Saudi Arabia ranked first amongst incoming Arab tourists, with a total of 507,000 tourists visiting Egypt, followed by Jordan, with 180,000, Kuwait with about 150,000 and Lebanon with nearly 86,000 thousand.
The total number of travellers from Arab countries to Egypt reached two million tourists in 2016, compared to 1.7 million in 2015, which marks an increase of 13.2 percent, whereas in the first quarter of 2017, the number of Arab tourists increased by 38.8 percent when compared to the same period last year.”
“Egypt is always keen to take steps to encourage and attract tourists from Arab countries, whether it is through facilitating entry and visa procedures or encouraging airlines from Arab countries to schedule regular flights,” said H.E Rashed, He added, “We are currently working on facilitating entry visas to domestic helpers that usually accompany guests from the GCC counties, in addition to introducing group tourist visas from our guests and travellers from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia,” Rashed said.