“This achievement represents the highest growth rate in the last 15 years,” the statement quoted Mohamed Amer, the Head of the Central Administration for Hotel Establishments, Shops, and Tourist Activities at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, as saying.
The total number of hotel rooms across the country now stands at 220,044 rooms, Amer added.
Egypt seeks to enhance the tourism sector – one of the country’s major sources of hard currency – to attract more tourists.
The efforts align with the Egyptian National Tourism Development Strategy, which focuses on improving the investment climate and increasing the number of hotel rooms to accommodate the targeted tourist influx, noted Amer.
The operation of new rooms generated nearly 15,600 direct job opportunities and 70,000 indirect job opportunities, he pointed out.
He explains that these new hotel rooms can be classified into two groups. The first pertains to newly added capacity, totalling 7,325 rooms across 5, 4, and 3-star facilities.
These rooms are distributed across various regions, including South Sinai, the Red Sea, Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Matrouh and the North Coast, Siwa, Luxor, Aswan, Port Said, Ain Sokhna, and Minya.
The second group involves hotel rooms previously closed but have now been reopened, comprising a total of 6,884 rooms.
This has reduced the number of closed rooms from 23,099 in December 2022 to 16,215 closed rooms by December 2023, he added.
The tourism ministry expects to open 25,000 hotel rooms by the end of 2024, according to the statement.
Minister of Tourism and Antiquities Ahmed Issa underscored the importance of accelerating the construction of the necessary hotel rooms as Egypt targets attracting 30 million tourists by 2028.
He emphasized the necessity of promptly providing banks and various civil institutions representing the private sector with the specific regulations for the new hotel investment incentives approved recently by the Cabinet, as soon as the executive regulations are finalized.
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