If there is one country in the world that embodies resilience in the face of adversity, it’s Egypt. Despite having been poised for a much-needed breakthrough in setting a tourist arrivals record multiple times over the past five years, one unexpected event after another has held the country back from achieving breakout growth in the tourism sector. But finally, in spite of the setbacks the country has experienced of late, tourists continue to set aside the unwarranted fears and outdated regional stereotypes perpetuated by international media and pour into Egypt by the millions – 14.906 million in 2023, to be exact.
Over the past several decades, Egypt has historically experienced a cycle of foundation-shattering events about once every 10 years – events that are completely out of the country’s control but which have an outsized impact on Egypt’s economy and especially it’s tourism sector. In 2001 there was the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the United States, which virtually ground Middle Eastern tourism to a halt followed by a slow and painful recovery in the years to follow.
Then came the Arab Spring a decade later in 2011, which brought about quite a few unexpected but significant national revolutions throughout the region, including in Egypt, and which again caused tourism to slow to barely a trickle for over a year. Then, about a decade later, almost like clockwork, the world got hit with the pandemic and international travel once again all but shut down completely for a while with yet another slow and sporadic recovery to follow.
Within these seemingly predictable 10-year cycles, Egypt also experiences a series of smaller cycles every 2-4 years that result in less catastrophic dips in tourism numbers and relatively quicker recoveries. For example, in the decade between the Arab Spring and the global pandemic, there were also domestic event-driven downturns in 2013 then again in 2015.
But with each of these shallower dips, Egypt’s economy and it’s hospitality sector rebounded relatively quickly. It even began soaring to new heights again in 2018 and 2019, with all signs pointing towards that long-awaited and much-needed breaking of the cycle. In 2020, however, those numbers would only come crashing down again due to events yet again entirely out of the country’s control.
In the post-pandemic years of 2021 and 2022, Egypt saw another surge in interest from international travelers and began to hit record tourism numbers once more, despite the unexpectedly long delay in the opening of it’s new billion-dollar Grand Egyptian Museum and despite the inability of the much-sought-after Chinese middle class tourism market to return to the global jet-setting stage. Then, without fail, the cycle held true to form yet again as the outbreak of the latest Israel-Hamas war on Egypt’s eastern Sinai border captured the world’s attention and caused the first intra-decade dip of the 2020s in tourist arrivals for the whole Middle Eastern region.
Although Egypt actually remained one of the least-disrupted countries in all of the Middle East, Europe, and North America in terms of protests and civil unrest (cities across Europe and the United States experienced far more unrest than anywhere in Egypt), the Western perception that the entire Middle East was in flames nevertheless tanked tourism once again during the fourth quarter of 2023, although the 2023-2024 holiday travel period did see a respectable early recovery.
In spite of 2023’s unexpected fourth quarter disruptions, we are now learning that Egypt still came shockingly close to meeting it’s annual tourist arrivals target of 15 million visitors, coming in less than 100,000 visitors shy of that goal. And even with the temporary depression caused by the conflict raging one country over, Egypt’s fourth quarter tourist numbers were still 8% higher than in the same period a year prior.
While the country continues to recover from the latest boom and bust cycle, one thing continues to weigh Egypt’s tourism sector down unnecessarily – a severe lack of any communication or clarity surrounding when the world can expect that the new Grand Egyptian Museum will finally be fully open to the public. Without this crucial piece of information, tourists by the millions are refraining from even planning trips to Egypt for fear of missing the chance to fully experience the major new attraction by only a few days, weeks, or months.
With most long-haul visitors only planning to visit Egypt once in their lifetimes, putting off a trip to such a big bucket-list destination by one or even a few years in order to make the trip more worthwhile when it finally happens seems perfectly reasonable. There are so many other accessible, affordable, and near-equally bucket list trips to be had by international travelers these days, and millions are currently opting to check those places off their lists first, while putting off plans to visit Egypt until some undetermined year in the future. And they will continue to do so, as long as concrete information about the Grand Egyptian Museum’s full opening date remains a closely guarded state secret that is shrouded in more mystery than the Sphinx.
But one thing remains a certainty when it comes to Egypt, a fact that has been true for 5,000 years and will remain so for another 5,000 years to come – Egypt is still and will remain a bucket list destination for nearly everyone on the planet, and the country’s resilience in the face of challenges, setbacks and adversity remains unparalleled in the global tourism market.
Despite what’s going on around us and all of the stereotypes and misperceptions perpetuated by international media, the numbers speak for themselves, as can the 14,906,000 individuals who still made the decision to come to Egypt during 2023.
