Poland lifts travel ban on Egypt's Red Sea resorts

Ahram Online , Wednesday 8 Oct 2014

The Polish embassy in Cairo advises its nationals to travel by plane if they visit Sinai

Hurghada
Tourists walk at an empty beach at the coast of the Red Sea of El-Gouna in Hurghada, about 464 km (288 miles) from the capital Cairo (Photo: Reuters)

Poland has lifted its travel ban on resorts in Egypt's South Sinai, Egyptian official news agency MENA reported.

A travel newsletter circulated by the Polish embassy in Cairo said that Polish nationals would be allowed to travel to Sharm El-Sheikh, Hurghada, Gouna and Marsa Alam but advised them not to travel individually and to not to travel to "dangerous areas in central and northern Sinai", MENA reported. The newsletter also advised Polish travellers to travel to these areas by plane.

Several European countries including Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, Denmark and Spain have recently lifted travel warnings against the Red Sea resorts, imposed after the February bombing of a tour bus in South Sinai that killed three South Korean tourists and their Egyptian driver.

Egypt saw a significant rise in the number of tourists visiting the country in August, the most in the last three years, the country's Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazou said last week.

Egypt's tourism revenue dropped by 24.7 percent to around $3 billion in the first half of 2014 according to a tourism ministry statement in August, a 25 percent drop from the same period a year earlier, however Zaazou expects tourism to recover by 2015.

The country's tourism revenues once peaked at $12.5 billion a year, but have dwindled to amid political upheaval and insecurity.

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