The tourist development authority (TDA) has received 64 applications to establish seven tourism investment projects on the Red Sea coast worth some LE3 billion ($0.4 billion), the authority stated on Thursday.

Mostly of the applicants are Arab and Egyptian tourism investment companies.

The projects on the Red Sea coast in South Sinai and Suez governorates amount to 7.8 million square metres.

A medical tourism project, tourist resorts and a marina to link the beach cities of Ain Sokhna and Ras Sedr are the main ventures proposed by the TDA.

Egypt aims to reinvigorate the tourism industry, which represents over 11 percent of the state’s GDP, after it suffered a blow in the wake of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi's ouster in July 2013.

Last week, Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou headed to Germany to urge tour operators to ease their advice against travel to the entire Sinai Peninsula after the fatal bombing of a tourist bus prompted operators to bring back holidaymakers from Sharm El-Sheikh a week earlier.

"Our latest crisis is the negative travel advice by the German government," Zaazou told Reuters in an interview at the ITB travel fair in Berlin on Wednesday.

France and Britain, two other major sources of tourists for Egypt, also advise against travelling to the peninsula but exempted Sharm El-Sheikh.