Egypt tourism impacted by Ukraine crisis

Friday, April 8, 2022

For the GDP of Egypt, tourism is as vital as the Nile to its people. After tourism sector of Egypt started making progress following 2015’s plane crash of Russia. Previously it was COVID-19 and now the war in Ukraine shot a bullet through its heart.

The long-drawn-out Russian conflict with Ukraine terrorizes many tourist hotspots that depend on Russian visitors. For outbound Russian tourism, Turkey, Uzbekistan, the UAE, Tajikistan, Armenia, Greece, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and Cyprus are among the top 25 countries in terms of flight capacity, as per Mabrian Technologies, an intelligence platform for tourism.

Also, Egypt’s economy is immensely dependent on tourism and from countries like Russia and Ukraine, with the two countries accounting for one-third of all visitors every year approximately. In tourism, Russia in 2015 enforced a slew of corrective measures against Egypt, destroying the industry and its workers.

As per industry insiders, due to the delay of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian flights, the drop has become very apparent of late, particularly in Sharm El-Sheikh, where occupancy rates are less than 35 percent, compared to 40 to 45 percent in Hurghada. In 2019, the contribution of Egypt’s Travel & Tourism to the nation’s GDP fell from $32 billion (8.8%) to $14.4 billion (3.8%) just 12 months later, in 2020.

“Russian tourism amounted to roughly 3.2 million Russian tourists in 2015, and it was anticipated to reach approximately 400,000 Russian tourists per month before the outbreak of war, whilst Ukrainian tourism amounted to roughly 3 million Ukrainian tourists in 2021,” Alassal said.

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