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Egypt is aiming to achieve a tenfold increase in the number of Saudi tourists visiting the country, as relations between the two Arab states continues to improve.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman announced during a rare four-day visit to Egypt last month that a bridge connecting the two countries would be built across the Red Sea, part of a wider 60 billion Saudi riyal ($6.75 billion) investment fund set up by the two governments.
Some Egyptian travel consultants have predicted the bridge could help increase the number of Saudi tourists traveling to Egypt by as much as 500 percent, according to a report by Arab News.
Mohamed Yehia Rashed, Egypt's Minister of Tourism, told Zawya on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) exhibition and conference in Dubai on Monday he had equally ambitious plans to increase visitor levels from the kingdom.
"Saudi Arabia has 18 million who travel out of Saudi, our share is 450,000. We want to have the share of 10 times as much," he said. Official figures certainly show the numbers visiting are on the increase. A total of 433,000 Saudis visited Egypt in 2015, a year-on-year increase of 14 percent.
The Egypt Tourism Authority (ETA) also reported the number of Saudi visitors during the first two months of 2016 increased by 6 percent, compared to the same period in 2015, according to a report by Hotelier Middle East magazine.
Despite a rise in the number of Saudi visitors, an Egyptian tourism ministry adviser told Reuters at ATM on Monday the country had banked just $500 million in tourism revenue in the first quarter of 2016, a 66 percent decline compared to the previous year.
Tourism has been struggling to recover since the 2011 uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule and the fatal crash of a Russian plane in the Sinai area last October.
Security concerns
Egyptian tourism officials have been eager to address the safety and security concerns and in November launched a new marketing campaign called '1 million tourists to Sharm El-Sheikh,' with Arab visitors a key priority in plans to revive the sector.
"Arab visitors are expected to play a significant role in the revival of tourism to Sharm El-Sheikh. Arab tourists spend at a high rate and are friendly toward Egypt," Adel Al Alfi, Egypt's consul general, was quoted as saying in November by the Saudi Gazette newspaper.
"Saudi Arabia and Egypt enjoy a great relationship and we always feel as one people and we offer Sharm El-Sheikh with a great form, where stability and progress prevail now," he added.
Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have poured billions of dollars into Egypt since Abdel Fattah Al Sisi toppled President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. However, the Gulf states were thought to becoming increasingly disillusioned at Sisi's inability to address entrenched corruption and inefficiency in the economy, Reuters reported.
However, King Salman's visit to the country and the multi-billion dollar investment plan would appear to show relations are thawing, something which is likely to be reflected in visitor numbers from the kingdom continuing to grow.
© Zawya 2016
