CAIRO - 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.
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console.log("BODY2. CatId is:"+catID);if(catID==120){console.log("BODY. YES for anyclip script");document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none";var script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = 'https://player.anyclip.com/anyclip-widget/lre-widget/prod/v1/src/lre.js'; script.setAttribute('pubname','jpostcom'); script.setAttribute('widgetname','0011r00001lcD1i_12258'); document.getElementsByClassName('divAnyClip')[0].appendChild(script);}else if(catID!=69 && catID!=2){console.log("BODY. YES for vidazoo script");document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none"; var script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = 'https://static.vidazoo.com/basev/vwpt.js'; script.setAttribute('data-widget-id','60fd6becf6393400049e6535'); document.getElementsByClassName('divVidazoo')[0].appendChild(script); }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 Morsi in July.
The tourism ministry this month launched a three-year marketing campaign in the hope of attracting tourists and investors to the country.