The number of hotel night reservations by tourists in Egypt reached 84 million at the end of 2017, a growth of 155% compared to 2016. A senior government official told Daily News Egypt that the number of arrivals from Europe reached 4.7 million by the end of last year, compared to 2.6 million in 2016, an increase of 81%. The total number of tourists coming to Egypt last year was 8.3 million compared to 5.4 million during the previous year. The source said that the measures taken by the Egyptian government, including the adoption of a new system to attract regular and charter flights, led to an increase in the number of arrivals and the growth of tourist nights during the past year. The tourism sector in Egypt has been hit several times since the January 2011 revolution, including after the crash of a Russian airliner in October 2015, which led to Russia halting all flights to Egypt and Britain suspending flights to Sharm El-Sheikh. Egypt and Russia signed an agreement to resume flights between Cairo and Moscow in February, with the return of flights to the rest of Egyptian cities to be discussed in April. The source pointed out that Germany topped the nationalities coming to Egypt as a tourist destination, while Libya and Sudan ranked fourth and fifth in terms of the number of arrivals. Egypt was visited by about 14.7 million tourists in 2010. The inflow took a downturn from then to 2016, when only 4.5 million tourists came due to the Russian jet crash and the travel warning issued by several countries. The Egyptian government is working to boost the number of incoming tourists and to increase the revenues generated by tourism to secure the inflow of foreign currency and job creation. The government and the private sector have been working side by side to improve the image of Egyptian tourism and restore it to the programmes of global tour operators.
