Income from Russian tourists to Egypt came on top of the list of the 10 countries that sent the most tourists to Egypt last year. Income amounted to $2.5bln, according to Adla Ragab, Chairman of the Sub-Accounts Unit of the Ministry of Tourism. In a statement to Daily News Egypt, Adla Ragab said that the number of Russian tourists last year increased to 3.1 million, compared to 2.4 million tourists the previous year. Income from more than 3 million tourists was at $2.5bln, according to Ragab. Last year, tourism revenues in Egypt were at $7.3bln, compared to $5.9bln in the previous year. Average spending for Russian tourists last year was at $58 per night, Ragab said, adding that the number of nights tourists spent in Egypt were 35m nights. Despite the Rouble crisis in the last months of 2014, Adla declared that the tourist flow from Russia was not affected. On the contrary, it increased greatly by the end of 2014. "Some regulations were issued by a number of economic institutions in Russia, urging citizens to spend economically in order to maintain the Rouble exchange rate," said Elhamy El-Zayat, Chairman of the Egyptian Tourism Federation. El-Zayat expects that the Russian tourist flow to Egypt will decline by 20% this year. On the other hand, chairman of the Investors Association in Marsa Alam, Tarek Shalaby, believes that Russian tourist flow in the region is still low but is slowly improving. He added that the Rouble crisis was behind all of this. According to Shalaby, occupancies at such times do not exceed 60%, but with the low exchange rate of the Rouble, the number of Russian tourists is even lower. Source: Daily News Egypt
