CAIRO: Regional tourism is on the rise in Egypt, especially visitors from Saudi Arabia, while western tourists are still avoiding the country, the tourism minister deputy told the Saudi al-Watn Arabic language newspaper. The statement given to the newspaper reveled that the number of Saudi tourists in the first quarters of 2012 rose about 100 percent compared to the same period in 2011, where a popular uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak and put him behind bars in the trail of the century, on charges of corruption and ordering the shooting of about 1,500 protesters. So far in 2012, 220,000 Saudis came to Egypt compared to 111,000 in the past year. The deputy added that the regional and Arab tourism to Egypt increased in general, with 462 tourists from neighboring Arab countries choosing Egypt as their vacation spot. In 2011 a sum of 269,000 Arabs visited Egypt. The number of westerners vacationing in Egypt in 2012 decreased by almost 20 percent, with 2.34 million visitors, compared to 3.1 in 2011, possibly fearing the political unrest during the transitional period that should end soon with an elected civil president.
