GCC tourists to Egypt will spend almost USD 2.4 billion in 2020, an increase of 11 percent over 2019. Visitors from Saudi Arabia will drive this growth, according to new data published ahead of Arabian Travel Market 2020. The event will take at Dubai World Trade Centre from 19-22 April 2020.

Visitors from Saudi Arabia to Egypt made 1,410 trips in 2019 with a forecast of 1.8 million tourists by 2024, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of five percent.

In terms of tourism expenditure, Saudi Arabian visitors spent USD 633 million in 2019 which is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 11 percent through to 2024, reaching USD 1.13 billion, according to Colliers International.

Danielle Curtis, exhibition director ME, Arabian Travel Market, said: “Total tourism receipts in Egypt which stood at USD 16.4 billion in 2019, will achieve an average 13 percent CAGR over the next five years to reach USD 29.7 billion.”

“And Egypt also has a significant outbound market for the GCC. 1.84 million visitors arrived in 2019 and this is estimated to increase to 2.64 million by 2024,” added Curtis.    

Egypt’s top source market is Germany with 2.48 million arrivals a 46 percent increase over 2018 and a total spend of USD 1.22 billion in 2019. German arrivals are forecast to reach 2.9 million by 2024 with a total projected spend of USD 2.18 billion.   

While arrivals from Europe are expected to be the largest contributor on a regional basis, increasing from 6.2 million in 2018 to 9.1 million tourists in 2022, arrivals from the GCC at 11 percent will represent one of the highest growth rates.  

 “Over the last 12 months, Egypt’s tourism industry has witnessed remarkable growth, with arrivals up 57.5 percent from 11.3 million in 2018 to 17.8 million in 2019. Growth has been fuelled by cheaper Egyptian Pound and government incentives for charter airlines operating international flights,” said Curtis.

Data and analytics specialist STR commented that Sharm El Sheikh led the recovery with RevPAR rebounding 315 percent for the November rolling 12 month period between 2016 and 2019. Hurghada followed closely with a 311% increase, whereas Cairo & Giza recorded a 138 percent growth.

“Underscoring those impressive numbers, we witnessed a 23 percent increase in the number of visitors interested in doing business with Egypt, up to almost 4,000,” added Curtis.

Following Germany, the second largest source market in 2019 was the Ukraine, with 1.49 million visitors, almost 50 percent growth over the previous year. This remarkable rise has been mainly driven by the availability of direct flights, which resumed, after a two-year suspension, in April 2018.

Egypt tourism capital investment, which was estimated to have reached USD 4.2billion in 2019, up 25 percent on 2018, was fully justified after a major announcement by the UK’s Department of Transport (DoT), was made on 22nd October 2019. The DoE ended a ban on direct flights between the UK and the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.