CAIRO (Reuters) – The number of tourists visiting Egypt fell 32.4 percent in March compared with the same month last year, state media said on Tuesday, as a vital source of foreign currency continues to dry up after years of political turmoil.
Around 755,000 tourists visited Egypt in March, state-news agency MENA quoted official statistics agency CAPMAS as saying, compared with more than a million in March 2013.
The tourism sector, a major source of foreign currency for Egypt, has been hammered since the popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011. It suffered another blow in February when a coach carrying Korean tourists was bombed by Islamist extremists.
Egypt’s revenue from tourism tumbled 41 percent last year to $5.9 billion. Hundreds were killed in the violence that followed the army’s overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in July.
The tourism ministry this month launched a three-year marketing campaign in the hope of attracting tourists and investors to the country.
