Egypt aims to increase its visitor numbers by 25 percent and 30 percent annually as it targets 30 million tourists by 2028, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa said on Monday. The new strategy to revitalise the tourism sector, which was hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic and the fallout of the Russia-Ukraine war, includes more than doubling the number of hotel rooms, boosting the number of plane seats, investing in promotion and improving the overall visitor experience. "We need just 300,000 rooms, $30 billion of investments in rooms and probably similar amounts of investments in customer experiences. Spread the word — and it is a great industry to invest in," said Minister Issa at a talk at the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt (AmCham). Egypt's tourism numbers dropped to 3.7 million in 2020, from about 13 million in 2019, before slightly recovering to eight million in 2021, according to the country's statistics agency Capmas. According to Egypt's official statistics agency, the country's number of tourists fell to 3.7 million in 2020, from around 13 million in 2019, before recovering to eight million in 2021. In the first half of 2022, five million tourists visited Egypt. The full-year figures for 2022 are not available yet. The country's revenue from the tourism sector dropped to $4 billion in 2020, from about $13 billion in 2019, before reaching $9 billion in 2021. Issa, who was named tourism minister in August in a cabinet reshuffle, said he sees an opportunity for tourism growth led by the private sector, despite economic challenges. Unlike his predecessor Khaled El-Enany, who studied Egyptology and has academic background, Issa's career includes around 25 years at one of the largest private-sector lenders, the Commercial International Bank (CIB). He served key roles such as chief financial officer and chief executive of retail banking. "I have built a career on problem-solving," Issa stated. "I usually ask myself: is it a problem of supply or is it a problem of demand?" Egypt has 2,000 archaeological sites and six UNESCO world heritage sites, including several key attractions such as the Pyramids of Giza, the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, and the temples of Aswan. It also has coastal destinations across both the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Despite all of this, Egypt "has only been getting less than 1 percent of the total tourism in the world." the minister said. A study led by El-Enany found that 55 percent of global tourists would be interested in coming to Egypt, showing that "it is not a problem with demand," Issa stated. He further said that one of the issues is not having enough plane seats coming in to the country. There were only 5,000 seats coming from Russia during the last week of July, compared to 30,000 seats in the last week of December. Accordingly, the number of weekly arrivals from Russia surged by 5.5 times, he added. The minister said there is also a need to boost the budget airline seats, in particular, which only account for one in seven of Egypt's total. "Countries with more than 30 million tourists all have a higher percentage of low-cost carriers arriving in their countries to be able to achieve that number," Issa said. A second issue is hotel capacity, with around 210,000 rooms currently available in Egypt. "We simply haven't built enough hotel rooms in Egypt over the past few years," "Countries that serve 30 million to 40 million tourists have about half a million rooms or so, so we need to build 300,000 more rooms." he noted. The rooms are also not well distributed, with only around 15,000 floating hotel rooms and 7,000 on the ground in the key tourist destinations of Luxor and Aswan. Therefore, the minister said the plan is to start with adding 25,000 to 30,000 rooms this year and grow the ministry's investment in promotion by 50 percent. In parallel, the ministry of tourism will be working with government and private sector partners to improve the overall customer experience at tourist sites and create value propositions for independent travellers. "The product today is not ready and it is going to take us years to be able to build it," he added. As part of the ministry's digital transformation, the minister announced that 78 nationalities can now receive an electronic visa while 20 will be added in the coming few weeks. Around 180 nationalities can receive a visa on arrival, provided they have a visa on their passports for the UK, US, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, or Schengen countries, he added. In December, 1.7 million e-tickets out of 2 million visitors were issued at Egypt's archaeological sites and museums. Issa further said the ministry will be measuring its performance in improving the visitor experience over the coming two to three years. "We are going to ensure that [tourism] in Egypt continues to grow by 25 per cent to 30 per cent per annum over the coming five years until we reach 30 million tourists by 2028, maximum by 2030, God willing." he concluded.
