CAIRO: Egypt's tourism numbers have seen a decline in the first four months of 2009 due to the effects of the global financial slowdown. The numbers for the first four months of 2009 show a 13.2 percent drop in the number of tourist nights compared to the same period in 2008, while the number of tourist arrivals during the same period has declined 10.3 percent to 3.67 million arrivals. The Ministry of Tourism told Daily News Egypt that the exact tourism revenue figures for 2009 have not been released, although Reuters reported Thursday a 13.2 percent slowdown in revenues so far this year to $3.6 billion. Around 13 million tourists visited Egypt in 2008. According to Egypt's State Information Service, tourism is one of Egypt's major industries employing more than 10 percent of the workforce and counting for about 12 percent of GDP and 40 percent of non-commodity exports. It is also a top source of hard currency in the country, accounting for 20 percent of foreign currency earnings. "Tourism is a vital industry in Egypt, and is one of the sectors most impacted by the financial crisis in Egypt so far, said Magdy Sobhy, an economics expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies. In an April 2008 report, Minister of Tourism Zoheir Garannah laid out plans to increase tourist revenues to LE 12 billion by 2011, and attract up to 14 million tourists, creating 1.2 million job opportunities in the process. Progress towards these ambitious targets, however, has been halted due to a global slowdown in tourism revenues as a result of the financial crisis. Declining numbers of tourists from Eastern Europe account for at least 60 percent of the drop in industry productivity in 2009. Arrivals from Ukraine are down 57 percent and visits from Russia and Poland have declined by 23 percent this year, Reuters reported. While, low numbers of Eastern European visitors have left Egypt's Red Sea resorts relatively empty, luxury tourism in the country has not experienced as steep a decline so far this year, with arrivals from Arab countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia up slightly. Garannah has laid hopes on improvement during the rest of the year to keep levels of decline in arrivals at around 8-9 percent for the year. The upcoming summer season could contribute to a partial recovery in the sector. "Hopefully, the summer tourism season will see a lot of visitors from the Gulf countries; this will help the numbers recover and improve the health of the tourism sector, said Sobhy. The drop in tourism is contributing to Egypt's slowing economic growth, which is expected to drop to just over 4 percent for this year, marking the country's lowest growth rate since 2004.
