Tourists take a dip in the sea at a beach, excluded from a swimming ban, at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh December 2, 2010 (Photo: Reuters)
German tourists are no longer warned by their country against travelling by road to Egypt's South Sinai area, announced Hansjorg Haber, the German ambassador based in Cairo.
"This step will push forward tourism in the red sea zone, much needed by Egypt at the moment," he said in a press statement on Sunday.
However, Germany still warns its citizens against travelling to North Sinai --including the borders zone—where fierce clashes between army forces and militants continue.
Last summer, Germany and other European countries lifted the travel ban on travelling to South Sinai which they had imposed in the aftermath of the killing of the South Korean tourists by Islamist militants in February 2014.
Egypt saw a 36.4 percent drop in the number of German tourists who arrived in Egypt in the first five months of 2014 – around 300,000 tourists, as compared to about 500,000 in the same period in 2013, official figures showed.
Egypt's tourism revenues in 2014 rose to $7.5 billion from $5.9 billion the previous year, marking a 27 percent increase in revenues from one of the country's major sectors.
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