Tuesday, Feb 21, 2012
(Adds month-on-month comparison in 3rd paragraph.)
CAIRO (Zawya Dow Jones)--The number of tourists coming to Egypt dropped 33% in December, compared to the same month a year earlier as the uprising that forced the former president Hosni Mubarak to step down took its toll on one of the country's most lucrative foreign currency earners, the latest data published by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics in Cairo showed.
The country's official statistics agency said the number of tourists dropped to 855,000 in December last year, from 1.275 million in December 2010.
That also represents a 16% drop in tourist arrivals compared to a month earlier, when the total number of tourists stood at 1.018 million, according to CAPMAS data.
The number of nights tourists spent reached 9.7 million in December 2011 versus 11.7 million in the same month a year earlier.
Tourist arrivals have been rapidly shrinking as embassies warn their citizens of political unrest in the country. Two incidents of kidnappings of foreign tourists in the Sinai Peninsula have also exacerbated international warnings on visiting Egypt.
-By Farah Halime; Contributing to Dow Jones Newswires; Fhalime@gmail.com
Copyright (c) 2012 Dow Jones & Co.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
21-02-12 1114GMT
