Tourism

The Egyptian tourism industry is among the world's largest and most diverse. With revenues in 2006/2007 hitting US$ 8.2 billion, tourism is a key contributor to the country's GDP and a primary source of foreign exchange. In Egypt, tourism ac­counts for 3% of GDP, while the sector's total direct and indi­rect impact on the Egyptian economy is about 11.3% of GDP. A labor-intensive industry, tourism employs 2.3% of Egypt's non-agricultural workforce and generates employment and income in supporting industries including financial services, construc­tion, security, handcrafts, food and beverages.

The target for Egypt is to consolidate its position as a key player in the global tourism scene by promoting the country as a cultural, entertainment, health and business destination. Ac­cording to the World Tourism Organization, Egypt is current­ly among the top 25 destinations worldwide accounting for ap­proximately 1% of the global market.

Tourists visiting Egypt currently account for 25% of all tour­ism coming into the Middle East and 33% of visitors to North Africa. Leisure tourism is the largest market segment, followed by business and conference tourism. Health tourism presents another viable area for Egypt, with Cairo assuming prime im­portance as one of the most important healthcare hubs of the region.

The government's national target is to increase Egypt's share of global tourism to 2.2%, boosting annual income from the sector to US $ 13.4 billion. Meanwhile, operators are ramping up to grow hotel capacity to 300,000 rooms — enough to serve the goal of hosting 18 million visitors by 2015, up from 9.6 mil­lion in 2007. These targets will generate some 1.2 million new job opportunities in the sector by 2015.

Today, Russian tourists account for the largest share of tour­ist arrivals from a single country to Egypt at 12% of total arriv­als during FY 2006/07. While Europe remains the largest mar­ket for tourist arrivals to Egypt, increasing numbers of tourist are coming from the Arab region.

These visitors are presently served by 183,000 hotel rooms. More than 130.000 rooms are currently under construction and 665 new hotels are in the pipeline. In 2005, average room occu­pancy stood at 68.5%, with average room rates reaching US$ 57 per room night.

In 2007, some notable additions were made to the luxury ho­tel market, with the opening of the Four Seasons Hotel Alexan­dria (the brand's fourth property in Egypt) and the Sofitel EI-Gezirah Cairo (Sofitel's eleventh property in the country). In 2008, Egypt's first luxury Fairmont Hotel is also expected to start receiving visitors.

Recognizing that traditional tourism venues such as the Red Sea and UpperEgypt's antiquities are nearing saturation, the Egyptian Tourism Authority (ETA) is looking to develop alter­native markets, including medical and 'golf tourism. In De­cember 2007. Egypt hosted an international conference on health and therapeutic tourism, highlighting the importance of this sector to the industry.

Airports

Egypt's primary airports include Cairo International Airport, Borg El-Arab In­ternational Airport in Alexandria, Lux­or Airport and Sharm El-Sheikh Airport. The country's national airline is EgyptAir, which flies to more than 84 destina­tions worldwide. All the major interna­tional carriers serve the Egyptian market, among them Air France, British Airways, KLM, Lufthansa and Swiss.

New airports in the resort areas of Mar-sa and Alamein on Egypt's North Coast have also become operational.

New Tourism Investments

More and more real estate developers from the Gulf are becoming interested in investing in Egypt's vibrant tourism sector. In July 2006, Emaar, the Dubai-based global real-estate giant, paid US$ 175 million at an auction for seafront re­sort land at Sidi Abdel Rahman on the Mediterranean coast. The highly cov­eted acquisition includes seven kilome­ters of pristine coastline that belonged to the state-owned Egyptian General Company for Tourism and Hotels.

Emaar is presently hard at work de­veloping and marketing Marassi, its new year-round Mediterranean tour­ist destination in Sidi Abdel Rahman. The new resort will include several ho­tels, including a revamped version of the historic Sidi Abdel Rahman Hotel, as well as luxury villas, chalets, a ma­rina and an 18-hole golf course. The project is expected to be complete in five years.

Following in the footsteps of Emaar, DAMAC — one of the Middle East's larg­est luxury property developers best known for its Dubai towers — made its debut on the Egyptian market. DAM-AC is currently developing a 320 million-square-meter tourism project in GamshaBay, 60 kilometers north of Hurghada.

The project, which is being billed as a "township," will be completed in phases over the course of 10 years.

The outlook for Egypt's tourism sec­tor remains highly promising, with the year-on-year growth rate in tourist ar­rivals, easily surpassing the worldwide average.