The Egyptian Tourist Authority (ETA) is preparing to inaugurate a tourist convoy to visit four German cities during the next week for the marketing of resorts and hotels in Egypt, according to an official at the authority. The official added that the cities include the entire German capital, Berlin, and Leipzig, Nuremberg, and Frankfurt. He noted that ETA offered free entries for 15 companies and hotels in Egypt to participate. Germany is one of the countries that has driven inflow to Egypt in the first half of the current year, following Germany lifting its travel warning previously imposed on travelling to Egyptian resorts, according to the official, adding that ETA anticipates an increase in the inflow from Germany to reach 800,000 by the end of the year.
The number of German tourists during the first half of this year was up by 66%, reaching 503,000 tourists compared to the same period last year. The tourists spent about 5.1 million nights, up by 124% and becoming atop the tourism exporting markets to Egypt.
He pointed out that the German market is very promising for Egypt and will contribute to increase occupancy in the Egyptian resorts, especially the cities of Sharm El-Sheikh and Hurghada during the winter.
The hotel capacity in the southern Sinai and Red Sea governorates accounts for two thirds of the hotel capacity operating in Egypt of 225,000 rooms.
The tourism ministry hopes the number of tourists will reach 8 million at the end of this year compared to 4.5 million last year, despite the ban on Russian tourism. Russian tourist flights to Egypt have been suspended since the beginning of November 2015 after a Metrojet airliner fell in October en route from Sharm El-Sheikh in October of the same year. The peak inflows of tourists from Russia was in 2014 reaching 3.1 million tourists, falling in 2015 to 2.3 million tourists.
The official said that the ETA plans to partake in several string events in Russian and Germany this month, next to working to convince Russia to lift the suspension of Russian flights to Egypt and to increase tourist arrivals from Germany by the end of this year.
He pointed out that the European market still represents the largest proportion of inflows of tourists to Egypt, with a share of about 1.9 million tourists, compared to 1.1 million tourists in the first half of last year.
