Dubai |By Saifur Rahman |
16-02-2003
www.gulfnews.com
Egypt is considering re-opening its tourism office in the Gulf, buoyed
by solid growth in its tourist intake in 2002 which saw an 11.7 per cent
increase, said an official of the Egyptian Tourism Authority.
"We had maintained an office in Dubai for some time, which we closed
down a few years back due to lack of interest among visitors from the
Gulf," said Nariman Hassan Ahmed, director of public relations, ETA.
"The trend, however, is reversing itself as more and more Gulf
nationals and residents are visiting the historic sites and attractions in
Egypt. The number of visitors from the GCC has shown a significant
increase in the last few months of 2002 which is prompting the
decision-makers to re-open the office.
"So our office is planning to re-open this in one of the states here
in the Gulf. The Gulf is a large source market for tourism in Egypt and
the number of tourists from this region is growing fast," she added.
ETA was participating in the Egyptian pavilion at the Dubai Shopping
Festival (DSF) 2003 which closed yesterday.
Statistics released by Egypt's Ministry of Tourism showed the country's
tourism made a record in 2002 after more than 5 million tourists visited
the country and bought 33 million tourist nights during their stay,
representing an 11.7 per cent increase in tourist arrivals. The purchase
of tourist nights increased by 9.6 per cent.
The number of Arab tourists rose by 16 per cent to I,127,750, compared
with their number the previous year. During their stay, Arab citizens
purchased about seven million tourist nights (an increase of 18.8 per
cent) against 5,996,801 the previous year.
Saudi Arabia came top among the Arab countries in the number of tourists
(249,000 tourists and about two million tourist nights) to Egypt. Libya
(225,000 tourists and 1.1 million nights) came second, followed by
Palestine and Kuwait.
The number of Omani visitors to Egypt grew 29.1 per cent in 2002, while
Saudi Arabia and Qatar reported a 10.3 per cent increase.
The U.S. accounted for 117,396 tourists to Egypt, a decrease of 34.1 per
cent compared with the previous year.
The Ministry of Tourism said about 474,000 tourists arrived in Egypt in
December, 2002, an increase of 61.6 per cent. The number of tourist nights
they bought was 2.3 million, an increase of 61.3 per cent against figures
reported for the same period the previous year.
Europeans comprise the largest number of tourists to Egypt and in 2002,
over 3.5 million tourists (an increase of 14.4 per cent) from Europe
visited Egypt against 3,1 million the previous year. They spent up to
22.94 million nights (an increase of 11.2 per cent) during their stay
against 20.62 million in 2001.