Sunny, hot days return to Egyptian tourism industry

The temple of Philae in Aswan attracts a large number of tourists every year.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Last year 109 million Chinese went on holiday abroad, 19.5 percent more than the year before and nearly 13 times the number in 1998. In 2013, Chinese tourists spent $129 billion abroad, more than any other source market. China is the world's largest outbound tourist market, the China National Tourism Administration said.

Shaarawy said a target of 200,000 Chinese tourists for Egypt represents a fraction of 1 percent of the global number so it ought to be easily attainable.

Egypt's rich culture and long history are tantalizing for Chinese tourists, he said, and over the past 14 years the country has been a big draw card for them. That attraction reached its zenith in 2010 when 106,000 Chinese visited the country.

But over the following three years the numbers fell sharply, and it was only last year that they began to recover.

There was a "remarkable recovery" in Egypt's tourism industry in the second half of last year, "especially during holiday seasons in the beach resorts", the Financial Times of London quoted Christian Muhr, vice-president of Egypt operations for Hilton Hotels, as saying. Hilton owns 18 properties in the country. "The forecasts for 2015 are promising as well," Muhr said.

Tourist arrivals rose nearly 70 percent in the third quarter of last year compared with the previous corresponding period, according to Egypt's Ministry of Tourism. Arrivals in September rose 193 percent year-on-year, with 884,000 arrivals compared with 301,000.

For the Egyptian tourist industry this is all deja vu.

Numbers slumped in 2011 during the civil unrest that led to Hosni Mubarak being ousted as president after ruling the country for 30 years.

They picked up slightly in early 2012 after parliamentary elections and rebounded further in June that year after president Mohamed Morsi was elected.

But a year later he was overthrown in a coup that sparked deadly clashes in Cairo and other parts of the country, and tourist numbers dived again.