Egypt tourist numbers drops again over security fears

Egypt received 0.9 million tourists in January, 10.2 per cent more than the 800,000 it received the previous year, but still 400,000 less than in January, largely as a result of a security vacuum following the revolution that deterred tourists, the Central Agency for Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) reported on Monday. The largest proportion of tourists came from Western Europe, followed then by Eastern Europeans and then tourists from the Middle East, spending a total of 13.8 million nights in the country, 30.3 percent more than in January of last year and 9 percent less than in January 2012. Tourists from Arab countries increased by 14.1 percent to reach almost 191,000 tourists January 2013, still mush less however than the pre-revolutionary rates that was around 330 000 in January 2010. Arab tourists spent 4.1 million nights in Egypt in January of this year, 52.1 percent more than in January of the previous year. Arab tourists spent in an average12.4 million nights in January of this year, compared to 11.9 million nights last year and 11.5 million the year before last. Egypt's tourism sector received several blows since the beginning of this year, the most serious of which was the hot air balloon accident in Luxor leaving 19 tourists dead in late January. Tourism experts have estimated hotel occupancy rates to have reached approximately 10 percent in hotels in Cairo, the Red Sea and Luxor. Albawaba Business