The number of tourists visiting Egypt rose by 54.4 percent in the first 11 months of 2017, reaching 7.49 million, the country's state official statistics agency CAMPAS said Sunday. The number of arrivals in November has risen by 55.8 percent to around 778,800 million from 499,800 in October. CAPMAS added that the number of tourist nights also rose by 178.3 percent in the same eleven-month period on annual basis to reach 81.61 million from 29.32 million last year. Egypt hopes the number of tourists will reach 8 million in the whole of 2017, up from 4.5 million last year, a government official told Reuters in September. Tourist revenues should hit $6 billion in 2017, up from $3.4 billion in 2016, the official said, despite a continued flight ban from Russia, traditionally a major source of tourists, after a Russian plane crashed in the Sinai Peninsula in 2015, killing all 224 people on board. Egypt's aviation minister will travel to Russia to sign protocol agreements as early as Friday to finally allow the resumption of Russian flights. Russians accounted for a large proportion of tourists to Egypt, especially to the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.
