Saudi tourists to Egypt increased to 46,734 tourists during the first quarter of 2012 compared to 32,718 tourists in the same period in 2011, or a rise of 42.8 percent, the Egyptian Tourist Authority announced Wednesday. Furthermore, the number of nights Saudi tourists spent in Egypt is about 806,000 nights, compared to approximately 460,000 nights in the first quarter of 2011, which again shows an increase of 75 percent. In addition, the number of Saudi tourists amounted to 18,764 during March 2012, an increase of 75.2 percent compared with 10,711 tourists in March 2011. There is a noticeable increase in number of tourists pouring into Egypt, where rates increased by 32 percent during the first quarter of 2012 compared with the first quarter of 2011. The number of tourists reached 2,500,301 between January and March as opposed to 1,894,044 tourists during the same period last year. These figures reflect a gradual and continuous recovery in the tourism industry in Egypt, reiterating its position as a hub for the region's most important historical, cultural and artistic events.. Recent figures reflect that fact that Egypt remains to be one of the favorite destinations for tourists from around the world. The number of tourists in March 2012 reached 926,784 tourists while in February 753,451 tourists visited Egypt and 820,066 did so in January 2012. The number of Arab tourists who visited Egypt reached 483,834 tourists compared to 296,980 tourists during the same period in 2011, which shows an increase of about 62.9 percent. In addition, the number of Arab tourists reached 173,709 tourists during March 2012, an increase of 50.2 percent compared with 115,669 tourists in March 2011. Furthermore, the number of nights Arab tourists spent in Egypt is about 7.4 million nights, compared to approximately 4 million nights in the first quarter of 2011, which again shows an increase 84.4 percent. Amr El Ezaby, Chairman of the Egyptian Tourist Authority, said: "These figures reflect the gradual and continuous improvement witnessed by the tourism sector in Egypt. The number of Arab tourists dramatically increased during the first three months of 2012 compared with the first quarter of last year, and that amounted to about 62.9 percent. There is an overall increase of 32 between both quarters, almost double the amount. Moreover, if we examine the number of nights spent by Arab tourists, we find that it was raised by 84.4 percent between the first quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2011, while the percentage increases in the overall rate of nights spent by all tourists across quarters is about 37.9 percent. This shows that the Arab tourist spends more than double the time a foreign tourist spends in Egypt, which emphasizes the special place Egypt has within the Arab population." During the first quarter, the tourism sector managed to reduce the drop to 27.8 percent compared with the first quarter of 2010.
