The Egyptian authorities were concerned about the mass deportation of Ukrainian tourists from their resorts to European countries. According to the Egyptian newspaper Ahram on Saturday, citing Egyptian Cabinet spokesman Nader Saad, in the last few days almost 4,000 Ukrainian vacationers have left the country of the pyramids for Ukraine’s neighboring territories, which is 1/5 of the total number of travelers still in the Red Sea and cannot return home.
Last week, the Ukrainian embassy asked the Egyptian government to help transport Ukrainian citizens. On Thursday, Chargé d’Affaires of Ukraine in Egypt Ruslan Nechai told a news conference in Cairo that the embassy was coordinating with the Egyptian Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Tourism to evacuate nearly 20,000 Ukrainian tourists currently in the country’s neighbors, especially Ukraine. to Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. The evacuation will take place in two stages.
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It is specified that the full-scale export of Ukrainians wishing to leave the resorts is carried out at the expense of the Egyptian government and is carried out on the wings of EgyptAir and Cairo Air. Tourists are not taken to Ukraine, but to neighboring countries. Back flights are also full: they take home Egyptians who were able to fly from Ukraine to neighboring countries. According to the Egyptian representative of the Cabinet of Ministers, the number of Ukrainian tourists leaving the country is expected to increase in the coming days.
When the war broke out and the Ukrainian government decided to temporarily close its airspace to civilian flights for security reasons, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said that all Ukrainian tourists could continue their stay in Egyptian hotels. However, free accommodation for them will be provided only in three-star hotels. This was announced on Thursday by the Egyptian Hotel Association. Meanwhile, Ukrainian tourists staying in five-star and four-star hotels will be given a choice: either move to a three-star hotel (free of charge) or stay in their current accommodation at a special rate, read more in the article “It became known how much money for every Ukrainian tourist stuck in Egypt and where they will be settled.”
Egyptians were also evacuated home
According to the publication, Egypt is making every effort to return home its citizens from Ukraine. Prior to the Russian aggression, about 6,000 Egyptians lived in Ukraine, including 3,000 students studying at the country’s universities. In the last few days, dozens of Egyptian immigrants have already crossed the border into Romania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. They started returning home on Tuesday.
Gloomy prospects for tourism in Egypt and its food sector
The spokesman for the Cabinet of Ministers stressed that the biggest impact of the crisis is on the tourism sector. Egypt is one of the best destinations for Ukrainian tourists, in 2019 the country was visited by about 1.5 million people. Even despite the coronavirus pandemic, in 2020 the country of the pyramids was visited by almost 727,100 Ukrainian travelers.
“This is a big blow to tourism during this period, and we are looking for an alternative to compensate for this loss,” said the same official.