Egypt will see a "significant increase" in the number of tourists starting this winter, chairman of the Tourism Promotion Authority Hisham El-Demery told Ahram Online on Wednesday. The campaign to promote tourism to Egypt, which was launched in September in 2016 in 11 countries, has significantly improved tourism, El-Demery said. El-Demery said that $19 million were spent on the campaign in 2016, while in 2017 $9 million have been spent so far. The campaign has played a great role in improving the image of Egypt abroad, leading to the recent lifting of the flight bans imposed by many of the main European markets for tourism to Sharm El-Sheikh, which was hit hard after the crash of a Russian passenger flight in Sinai in October 2015, El-Demery said. Tourism revenues dropped to $3.4 billion in 2016, a 44.3 percent decline from the previous year. The number of tourists visiting Egypt during the first quarter of 2017 rose by 51 percent compared to the same period last year. Egypt aims to attract 12 million tourists by the end of 2017 through a plan that includes increasing the international presence of national carrier EgyptAir, tourism minister Yehia Rashed said in an interview with Reuters last year.
