A study of the Spanish tourist association Exceltur revealed on Saturday that the popularity of tourism in Egypt and Turkey has affected the global tourism market in Spain. For his part, Jose Luis Zoreda, vice president of Exceltur, said at a press conference that the reason for that decline in Spanish tourism is the recent political tensions caused due to the divisions of Catalonia. The study stated the loss of the Spanish market for about 149,500 British tourists and about 109,000 Germans, noting that these losses are due to the new promotional policies in the Egyptian and Turkish tourism markets. The study pointed out that Egypt and Turkey witnessed a remarkable recovery in the tourism markets. Notably, tourism in Egypt achieved its highest level ever in 2010 with a total number of 14.7 million visitors, but the revolution of January 2011 caused some disturbances, followed by the decline in tourism. Tourism suffered another devastating blow when a Russian passenger plane crashed in Sinai in late October 2015 and all its passengers were killed. Following the plane crash, Russia imposed a travel ban on Egypt, while Britain banned travel to Sinai. Russian flights returned to Cairo inApril. Hence, the following year, tourism fell to its lowest level in years, and the number of tourists reached 4.8 million. Tourism flows have improved following the Central Bank of Egypt's decision to float the Egyptian pound in November 2016, slashing the value of the local currency by about half and boosting the competitiveness of the sector. Zoreda stated that Egypt and Turkey are recovering their tourism, while Egypt has the largest share of that recovery, pointing out that this remarkable recovery recorded an increase in receiving tourism delegations by 40% of the Egyptian market, followed by 30% for the Turkish market. Meanwhile, the American Forbes magazine praised the stability of the political situation in Egypt, saying it is one of the best tourist destinations in 2018. It continued that that visitors began to return to Egypt again; there were about 8.3 million tourists in 2017, and they have increased their proportion in 2018. Earlier, during a press conference on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market exhibition that took place in Dubai inApril, Egyptian Minister of Tourism Rania Al-Mashat announced that the number of tourists visiting Egypt jumped 30% during Q1 2018 compared to last year. She added that tourism now represents 15% of the total sources of income for the national economy. Finally, Forbes asserted that Egypt has been and remains the cradle of civilization, and that it is in a stable position at the present time and ready to welcome tourists.
