Egyptian Tourism Minister Ahmed Issa announced today, Thursday, that the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza has led to a decrease in the number of tourists to the country compared to the expectations for the fourth quarter of 2023. However, the number of visitors increased in the first two months of the year. In addition to the impact of the war on tourism, attacks on maritime navigation in the Red Sea have affected transit fees for the Suez Canal, another major source of hard currency for Egypt's struggling economy.
Issa stated that 3.6 million tourists visited Egypt from October to December 2023. He added in an interview at a travel exhibition in Berlin that this was the second highest recorded number for the fourth quarter, but it was about 600,000 tourists less than the record number expected, which was 4.2 million.
He noted, "Cultural tourism is likely the area where we have seen the greatest impact," referring to Luxor, Aswan, and the Greater Cairo area. He mentioned that tourist numbers have since increased, with 2.12 million tourists arriving in the first two months of this year, an increase of about eight percent compared to the same period last year.
Meanwhile, tourism in the occupied West Bank has come to a halt, according to Majid Issaq, General Director of Marketing at the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism, at the travel exhibition. Issaq added that around 2.7 million tourists used to visit annually before the war, explaining that approximately 35,000 families rely on this sector.
