Italian tourism bookings to Egypt during the upcoming summer season have dropped by 90 percent in comparison to last year, according to the head of Foreign Tourism at the Egyptian Tourism Authority (ETA) Mohamed Abdel Gabbar. According to Abdel Gabbar, the ETA has cooperated with Italian travel agency Meridana to arrange a weekly flight from Milan to Sharm El Sheikh for EUR 112 per ticket starting from March, in addition to direct flights to Cairo for EUR 240 per ticket in May. The number of Italians in Egypt had reached 1 million tourists in 2010, with the majority of them visiting the Red Sea resort towns of Sharm El Sheikh and Marsa Alam. Meanwhile, the chief tax collector in Egypt’s Red Sea governorate told privately-owned Al-Masry Al-Youm that tourism-related tax revenues have dropped 80 percent in the governorate in the wake of the downing of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai last October. Tourism was once the flagship of Egypt’s economy but a string of security-related events, including the “accidental” killing of 12 Mexican tourists and their Egyptian guides in the Western Desert in September 2015, as well as the downing of the…
Italian Tourism in Egypt to Drop 90% During Summer Season: Egyptian Tourism Authority
February 15, 2016
