Egypt expects more than a million Russian tourists in 2021, as direct flights between the two countries, including the Red Sea resorts of Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada, are expected to resume in the coming weeks, Reuters quoted Egypt’s deputy tourism minister as saying.
Gada Shalabi said that in 2021, Egypt should accept 50 percent of the number of tourists it had in 2019 after their number fell by 70 percent in 2020 after the Covid-19 outbreak.
According to Reuters, the number of visitors coming to Egypt in 2020 decreased to 3.5 million from 13.1 million in 2019.
The country, which depends on tourism as its main source of income, is seeking $ 6 billion to $ 7 billion in tourism revenue this year, Shalabi added.
It took the Russians nearly six years to resume direct flights to popular Red Sea resorts after a Russian plane crashed in Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board.