Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has announced on Saturday the opening of Hyatt Centric Cairo West, the country's first art hotel. AlDau Development Company Company signed the contract with Hyatt Hotels to develop the hotel. The hotel is set to open in early 2024 and will have 283 rooms. It will be located in the Pyramids Heights area, part of the ongoing redevelopment of the area surrounding the Grand Egyptian Museum. The 27,000 square metres hotel incorporates art into its design and guest experience, including paintings, sculptures, hanging figures and distinctive architectural features, as it has attracted investments worth one billion Egyptian pounds. Giza Governor Ahmed Rashed and Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa attended the signing ceremony and spoke about the National Tourism Development Strategy during the ceremony. The strategy seeks to increase Egypt's tourism revenues by 25 to 30 percent annually. Issa said in a previous statement that Egypt aims to host 25-30 million tourists by 2028, and has been working to expand the capacity of the hotels to host 14-15 million tourists per year. He stressed on the need to double the number of hotel rooms, provide affordable air travel and diversify tourist products to attract the targeted number of tourists. Egypt has recently eased tourist visa requirements for several countries which include Morocco, Turkey, Iran, Algeria, India and China in order to boost tourism. The tourism sector is considered a key source of foreign currency for the country. The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on the country's tourism sector, wherein the number of tourists dropped from 13.1 million in 2019 to 3.7 million in 2020. However, the tourism sector has been recovering over the last two years, and the number of tourists increased to eight million in 2021 and 11.7 million in 2022. Egypt is expecting to welcome 15 million tourists in 2023.
