No country on earth boasts a longer recorded history than does Egypt,the Eternal 'Gift of the Nile' as described by the Historian Herodotus.
Astatement astrue as today as it has been through seventy centuries of Egypt's unique history.
For long years,Egypt has remained traditionally the hub of tourists interested in the history and the valuable heritage of ancient Egyptian monuments spread all over the country.
Egypt enjoys a unique geographical location, at the juncture of Africa,Asia and Europe,and a favorable climate. Itpossesses a huge cultural heritage manifest in the Pharaonic,Roman, Coptic and Islamic monuments. It has clear skies and bright sunshine all the year round.
Recently,Egypt has embarked into comprehensive and diversified tourism,whereby a wide range of tourist's services are available.
A wide variety of tourist products and services have been introduced, in order to attract more tourists to the country such as water sports and the opening of new beaches in resorts offering a wide variety of facilities to tourists.
Tourism in Egypt is a mainstay and an essential pillar of economic activity,with tourist revenue representing about 25% of Egypt's total foreign currency income.With its outstanding tourist assets,Egypt has gained a unique competitive edge on world tourist map.
The tourism industry has witnessed huge leaps,since Egypt embarked into comprehensive tourism industry through diversified tourist products.
The tourism industry represents one of the most important features of the national economy formula. It has become the locomotive of the economic development process,since it secures 18% of the national income in foreign currency
Indicators show that tourism industry has developed since the 1980's,particularly with the start of the successive five –year plans of the economic and social development which have been implemented incessantly.These plans aimed at setting up a huge and solid infrastructure, extended to the remote parts of the desert, the Red Sea coasts as well as Sinai,ending the remoteness of such areas from the valley.
Furthermore,suchareast urned into developmental economic centers and mainly in the tourism field. Moreover, investment and utilization of capitals flocked to these areas for establishing wonderful Yacht marina resorts,hotel facilities and high standard tourist locations.
All these factors led to a complete change in the Egyptian touristic product so as to embrace broader categories of world tourists. Now we can find several kinds of tourism of different tastes such as:monuments,marinas, recreation,religious purposes and desert safaris.Tourism in Egypt also satisfiesdifferent ambitions of tourists and which are widely needed nowadays such as Therapeutic, Conferences, exhibitions, environment and sports.This is besides the recreational and cultural activity that enriches the touristic product.
Since the 1990's,a new developmental policy was adopted by the issuance of Law no 7 for the year 1991 and the republican decree no 425 for the year 1992 and the setting up of the general organization for tourism development for the fulfillment of the planned and integrated development through the outstanding world and national expertise.
Investments in tourism domain
-Investment utilization in the tourism sector for the 2005/2006 years is estimated at L.E1974.6millions.
-Numbers of tourists for the year 2005/2006 reached 87 millions of tourists .Touristic nights are estimated at 85.7million in 2005/2006.
-Touristic revenues in 2005 /2006 amounted to $6429.
Hotels and Restaurants Sector
-Investments of this sector rose to LE 2,599 billion.The private and cooperative sector's contribution in this capital was LE 2 billion.
-Production of this sector reached Le 18593, 9 million for the year 2005/2006 periods.
-Employment in this sector embraced about 120.000 job opportunities for youth in 2005/2006.
