Skift Take
Egypt won't see a full recovery in American tourism until the Israel-Hamas war comes to an end.
American tourism to Egypt has been slow to recover since the war between Israel and Hamas started in October. That's what Egypt Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa told Skift this month at ITB Berlin, the travel trade show.
Tourism overall isn't growing as expected. “In the first two months of the year, we've seen a growth of 6% vis-à-vis the same period last year. We were expecting 20%,” he said.
In October and November — top travel months for Egypt — tour operators saw mass cancellations from Americans and other Western tourists.
Egypt expected over 4.2 million tourists in the final quarter of the year, but ended up with 3.6 million. Most of the drop can be attributed to American travelers, said I