A total of 232,468 tourists had visited museums across Egypt during the period from July 2014 to July 2015, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Amin said in a statement Wednesday.
The number of Arabs and Egyptian who visited Egypt’s museums during the said period reached 675,161, Amin said, adding that revenues from the entrance fees paid by Egyptian, Arab and foreign visitors to the museums have exceeded 27 million EGP ($3.4m.)
“The figures decreased by more than 60 percent compared to proceeds gained before the 2011 uprising,” Amin said.
In July, head of the museums section at the antiquities ministry Elham Salah told Youm7 that 18,440 tourists had visited Egypt’s museum in June.
Figures of last months were not available for comparison but Salah said that although the figures are rising month after month, “they are still way behind proceeds achieved before Egypt’s 2011 uprising.” that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
“For example, in November 2010, proceeds from museum and archaeological tickets sales reached 15 million EGP compared to 4.5 million EGP in November 2012,” Salah added.
The Ministry of Antiquities has been encountering financial problems with its total debt, which rose to 2.8 billion EGP due to the sharp decrease in its revenues, said Antiquities Minister Mamdouh el-Damaty in a statement in June.
According to Damaty, the ministry’s revenues during the 2013/2014 fiscal year reached only 125 million EGP compared to 3 billion EGP during the 2009/2010 fiscal year.
In 2010, which was the peak of Egyptian tourism during the past two decades, 14.7 million tourists visited the country and spent 98.5 billion EGP in revenue, according to the 2011 report of the National Accounts Division of the Ministry of Tourism.
Revenues from tourism, comprising 11.3 percent of Egypt’s gross domestic product (GDP), witnessed a sharp decline in the aftermath of the political instability following the 2011 uprising.
