Pages

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Surprise! Tourism to Egypt plummeting

Osama el Ashry, Egypt's undersecretary of tourism, says that bookings have gone down 20% since the recent kidnappings of tourists.

He said "the kidnapping of the Koreans, and before that the Americans, led to a decline in hotel occupancy, which was already suffering from a crisis from the security situation."

Meanwhile, civil aviation officials said that the number of air travelers to Egypt has declined by 60% since the revolution.

Egypt's tourism industry was worth about $11.6 billion in 2009,and it employs some 12% of the workforce.