Mounir Fakhry Abd ElNour, Minister of Tourism of Egypt, announced during a press conference preceding the event that the Ministry aims to raise the rates of tourism in Egypt to the levels witnessed in 2010.

The Ministry's strategy provides ongoing support to its partners in the trade sector through joint advertising and marketing campaigns, organizing FAM trips by inviting tour operators & travel agents to visit the touristic destinations in Egypt and introduce them to various products offered by Egypt for Arab tourists.

Moreover, the Ministry of Tourism's strategy focuses on Egypt's willingness to receive tourists throughout the year and to work on organizing various artistic and cultural events and festivals.

Abd ElNour said: "During the coming months, the Ministry of Tourism of Egypt seeks through their strategic plans to bring back tourism rates to their previous levels witnessed in 2010. We will focus our efforts on various global markets, particularly the Arab ones, where the rate of Arab tourists during the first three months of this year has witnessed a growth of about 62.9% compared with the overall rate of increase in visitors during the first quarter, which only amounted to 32%."

Records show that the number of Arab tourists who visited Egypt during the three months of this year is 483,834 tourists in 2012 compared to 296,980 tourists during the same period in 2011, which shows an increase of about 62.9%.

Furthermore, the number of nights Arab tourists spent in Egypt is about 7.4 million nights, compared to approximately 4 million nights in the first quarter of 2011, which again shows an increase 84.4%.

In addition, the number of Emirati tourists during the first quarter of 2012 is 4,883 in oppose to 4,232 tourists in the same period of 2011, an increase of 15.4%. While the number of nights Emirati tourists spent at Egypt is approximately 61,000 nights compared to 57,000 nights of the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 6.4%.