Normalization in ties between Türkiye, Egypt spurs tourism surge

Following the recent normalization of relations between Türkiye and Egypt, there has been a notable surge in tourism activity between the two countries with Egyptian officials anticipating to host some 250,000 Turkish tourists by the end of the year.

This revival is observed by the significant increase in the number of tourists traveling to Egypt from Türkiye, thanks to the visa facilitation process for Turkish citizens, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported Sunday.

On the other hand, the focus on infrastructure projects and diversification of tourist destinations to stimulate tourism in the country has also increased interest in Egypt.

After a period of divergence in ties Türkiye and Egypt have seen the rapprochement in recent years with the most notable sign of this being President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's visit to Cairo earlier this year.

During the visit, Erdoğan and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi signed a joint declaration on restructuring the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council meetings between Türkiye and Egypt.

"In the first four months of this year, we hosted around 80,000 Turkish tourists, and we expect 250,000 Turkish tourists to visit Egypt by the end of the year," Amr el-Kady, CEO of the Egyptian Tourism Authority told AA.

El-Kady stated that the Egyptian government has many initiatives for tourism, the most important of which are infrastructure projects.

"When you work on infrastructure such as roads, highways, airports, hotels, this is good for tourists as much as for the citizens," he explained.

"Secondly, we have a new investment incentive for hotel construction. If you build a new hotel and do it quickly, a portion of your interest rate is paid," he added.

He explained that by getting a loan, paying an interest and in case of building quickly, the government pays the share, actually almost 40% of the interest rate.

El-Kady emphasized that there are also aviation incentive programs for tourists, meaning that they partially cover the costs of any airline flying to Egyptian airports.

"Thus, we make flights less costly. This is how we facilitate and make it cheaper for tourists to come," he said.

Referring to the ongoing infrastructure projects in Egypt, el-Kady shared that 70% of these projects have been completed, and in some areas, they are finished.

"But we can now feel it, our roads are ready. Our high-speed train will be operational in 12 months. It will be high-speed like in any European city. We have a new capital that was built in just five years," he stated.

"Our offices have been moving to this new capital for a year. So most of the work is now nearing completion."