File Photo: Sharm el Sheikh's beaches are expected to fill up during the holiday season (Photo: Ayman Ibrahim)
Hilton vice president operations for Egypt and MENA Mohab Ghaly said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that the group is planning to increase the number of its operated hotels in the country within the upcoming 7 to 10 years from 17 to 30 hotels.
He also affirmed that occupation rates in the group's hotels is witnessing improvement in 2017 in comparison to the last year especially in Cairo, Alexandria, Hurghada and Marsa Alam.
Ghaly dismissed that tourism activity has been harmed by the stabbing attack in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada last July, saying that reservations has been already made to the city until September.
Egypt is undergoing efforts to revive the tourism sector, which is the cornerstone of the for millions of Egyptians and a major source of foreign currency.
The country has struggled to attract tourists pushed away by the political turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising.
Tourism sector revenues dropped to $3.4 billion in 2016, a 44.3 percent decline from the previous year, the Central Bank of Egypt said in January. The figure is a far cry from the $11 billion in revenues generated by the sector in 2010, when 14.7 million tourists visited the country.
The numbers of tourists visiting dropped dramatically after a Russian passenger jet crashed in Sinai in October 2015, killing all 224 people on board, mostly holidaymakers.
The country saw a 51 percent rise in the number of tourists during the first quarter of 2017 compared to the same period last year, suggesting a revival in the industry's fortunes.
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