The price of this market report covers 4 quarterly reports on this sector. This quarterly report will be downloadable instantly as a PDF document, with the 3 remaining reports delivered at regular intervals throughout the year.

In 2009, Egypt is estimated to have accounted for almost 41% of North African travel and tourism demand. The Egyptian tourism market grew very strongly in the early part of the last decade, with tourist arrivals ballooning in 2003 and 2004, and visitors spending increasing amounts of time in the country, leading to outstanding growth in international tourist nights and receipts, as well as improved hotel occupancy levels and capacity, particularly in the Red Sea and South Sinai areas. Much of this was thanks to a large fall in the value of the local currency during those years. Buoyant growth in arrivals was also recorded in 2007 and 2008. The global tourism downturn in 2009, however, resulted in negative growth in arrivals to Egypt, although there was a strong rebound in 2010.

Egypt has experienced a significant amount of project investment from multinational hospitality firms, albeit on a smaller scale than Middle Eastern markets such as Dubai. However, it is not without its serious problems. The tourism sector was targeted by terrorists in the 1990s and again in late 2004, mid-2005 at Sharm el-Sheikh and in the April 2006 Dahab bombings. Terrorist incidents against tourists also occurred in 2008 (11 tourists were kidnapped in Aswan) and there was a fatal bombing in Cairo in February 2009. In October 2009, there was an attempted hijack of an EgyptAir flight from Istanbul to Cairo. In January 2010 and 2011, there was violence against Coptic Christians in Naj Hammadi and Alexandria, leaving many dead.

In 2010, the Egypt Tourism Authority launched a campaign to attract more Arabic tourists to Egypt, focusing on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Syria. The aim is to attract more tourists to the Red Sea area, Alexandria and Cairo.

In the wake of the political unrest that engulfed the country in early 2011, the tourism industry, which employs approximately 12% of the entire workforce and accounts for a similar share of the economy, suffered badly. This is despite the fact that demonstrations were not focused on traditional tourist destinations such as Sharm el-Sheikh or Luxor. As the construction industry has been increasingly reliant on high-end tourism projects for growth, fixed investment activity is also set to take a downturn.