STORY: Egypt's tourism revenue jumps 120 pct in FY 2021/22
DATELINE: Aug. 10, 2023
LENGTH: 00:01:22
LOCATION: Cairo
CATEGORY: ECONOMY
 
SHOTLIST:
1. various of a Giza pyramid
2. various of tourists at Luxor Temple, museums, Sharm el-Sheikh seaside and other places
3. various of tourists at a Giza pyramid
 
STORYLINE:
 
The revenue of Egypt's tourism sector reached 10.7 billion U.S. dollars in the fiscal year 2021/2022 that ended in June 2022, marking an increase of around 120 percent over the 4.9 billion U.S. dollars in the previous fiscal year, Egypt's official statistics authority announced on Wednesday.
 
The number of tourists visiting Egypt hit 11.7 million in 2022, registering a year-on-year increase of 46.6 percent from 8 million tourists in 2021, Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics said in a report.
 
Europeans accounted for 62.6 percent of the tourists who visited Egypt in 2022, followed by Arabs who represented 26.4 percent and Americans who accounted for 5.8 percent, while the rest came from other countries, according to the report.
 
In July, Egyptian Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa said that nearly 7 million tourists visited Egypt in the first half of 2023, expecting that the number of tourists will reach a record high by the end of the year.
 
The number of tourists in Egypt dropped to around 3.7 million in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, after it saw a boom in 2019 with over 13 million tourists visiting the monument-rich country, according to official data. The number gradually recovered to about 8 million in 2021 and the tourism market has since been thriving.
 
Tourism sector is one of the main sources of foreign currency for Egypt, accounting for around 12 percent of the GDP and employing about 3 million Egyptians.
 
Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Cairo.
(XHTV)