The number of tourists visiting Egypt in March 2014 reached 755,000, a drop of 32.4 percent below the same month last year, Egypt's official statistics agency CAPMAS said on Tuesday.
Vacations in Egypt in March were also shorter as compared to the same period a year earlier, with the number of nights spent by tourists down by 43.6 percent.
In fact, the first three months of 2014 saw tourism revenues drop by 43 percent, compared to the previous year, Reuters reported in April.
Most tourists in the period were from eastern Europe, followed by western Europe and then Arab countries.
Almost 120,000 Arab tourists visited Egypt in March, compared to more than 180,000 visitors in the same period the previous year.
Egypt’s tourism sector, which represents 11 percent of the country’s GDP, has been suffering from ongoing shocks ever since the 2011 uprising that unseated the autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Despite a few instances of seeming recovery, the country’s instability has remained a challenge to the sector.
As one of several initiatives aimed at saving the sector, Egypt hosted the India on the Nile festival in April. During the event, Zaazou voiced hopes of Egypt welcoming up to 1 million tourists from India within the next three years, as a result of the growing partnership between the two nations.
