Egypt’s Minister of Tourism Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour announced that the damages which hit the tourism sector reached $278 million within the past two months due to banning the travel of Russian tourists to Egypt.

The Minister urged Russian authorities to scrap the travel ban pointing out that all other countries have lift their no-travel recommendations to Egypt except the United States and Australia.

The Russian "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" newspaper expected that Russian authorities would cancel a ban on tourist flights to Egypt in early April.

In spite of the travel ban, Russian tourists, who like to visit the Egyptian resorts all through the year, continue to travel to Egypt by many ways, the paper said on Tuesday.

Some Russian tourists headed for Ukraine or the EU states and later for Egypt to make their trips, the paper added.

The paper asserted that stability of the conditions in Egypt has propelled many European countries to lift their travel ban to Egypt, a matter which would urge Russia to follow on their footsteps.

SIS