Egypt tourism's revenues dropped 30 % in 2011

Egypt's Minister of Tourism Mounir Fakhry Abderl Nour announced the final figures of the Egyptian tourism sector in 2011. Egypt had about 10.2 million tourists in 2011 which is a drop of 32 per cent compared to 2010. "Tourism's revenue dipped 30 per cent as it reached $ 9 billion against $12.5 billion in 2010," Abdel Nour stated in a press conference on Thursday. He added that the number of tourist nights declined by 22 per cent recording 120 million nights in 2011 compared to nearly 150 million nights in 2010. Egypt had more or less actually estimated that it would earn about $9 billion from tourism in 2011, down about third on a year earlier after many visitors were deterred by an uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February and unrest that followed, a senior official said on Tuesday. "We expect around 30 to 35 per cent less revenue [ in 2011] than last year which means it is going to be around $3.5 billion to $4 billion less, so we are speaking about a figure around $9 billion," Hisham Zaazou, senior assistant to the tourism minister, told Reuters. Meanwhile, the minister of tourism said that he expects tourism revenues to jump by more than a third if the country's security situation improves one year into the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak.