Egypt has finally ceased to be Russian – this is how a Russian woman living in Sharm reacted after reading statistics on tourists in this country. According to her, there are not many Russian tourists in Egypt now, and although Egyptians do not lose their optimism, statistics show that the number of Russians in Egypt is decreasing.
First of all, it provides statistics on Egypt from the World Tourism Organization. According to her, in 2019 (before the pandemic) Egypt was visited by 13 million people, in 2020 – 3.7 million people (no comment – notes the blogger), in 2021 approximately 8+ million people, and in 2022 – 11, 7 million people (+46% compared to last year). As the blogger adds, there were less than a million Russians (about 900,000 people).
“There are statistics for Hurghada – only 4 million tourists in 2022, the largest number of them are Germans – 1.16 million. Russians are in second place, but with a huge gap – 472,000 people. Czechs, Poles, and the British round out the top five. There are no such data for Sharm, but the Europeans are clearly in the lead here as well (but not the Germans, who traditionally fly to Hurghada, but rather the Italians). In 2022, approximately 440,000 Russians visited South Sinai,” the blogger added and concluded that tourists from Russia “can’t be said to be many.”
The blogger also noted that by February 2022, Russians and Ukrainians accounted for 35-40% of the total tourist flow, but after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, everything fell again. As a result, the Russian market now lags behind the average indicators of recent years by about 40% – this was the estimate given by the Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa.
The blogger also reminds us that in 2028, Egyptian officials want to receive 25-30 million tourists per year. “Even with the decrease in Russian tourism, the results show that we will be able to reach or exceed our goal, God willing, in 2023,” she quoted the Egyptian tourism minister as saying.
The fall in the flow of tourists from Russia in 2022 was compensated by tourists from other countries, the blogger also assures. In January-February 2023, 30% more foreign guests flew to Egypt than in these months of 2022. Moreover, the largest increase in Italians — there, according to some data, an increase of +250%. The flow of tourists from the USA, Poland, Germany and Kazakhstan, Great Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, and Spain also increased. In addition, Egypt hopes for the return of Chinese tourists – before the pandemic in 2019, 220,000 of them arrived. As a result, thanks to all these markets, in the second half of 2022, Egypt overcame the consequences of the loss of Ukrainian tourism and another reduction in the Russian market.
“Officials say that the further growth of the tourist flow is limited by the lack of hotel places and low-cost flights. Therefore, the main directions of the development of foreign tourism are an increase in the number of flights, the construction of new 4- and 5-star hotels, and the simplification of the procedure for obtaining a visa. Also, Egypt continued the program of stimulating flights of foreign airlines – in the last two years, foreign carriers were paid from 1,500 to 3,000 dollars per flight. The amount depends on the frequency of flights, the number of flights, and the direction. From April 2023, this program will be extended for a new term,” the blogger added.