Egypt's tourism revenues up 27 percent in 2014

Egypt's tourism revenues in 2014 rose to $7.5 billion from $5.9 billion the previous year, the tourism minister said on Sunday, marking a 27 percent increase in revenues from one of the country's major sectors.

This puts the number of tourists who visited Egypt in the last quarter of 2014 at 2.6 million, compared to 1.9 million tourists in the same quarter of the previous year, according to Ahram Online's calculations using official data.

The country received 9.9 million tourists in 2014, up from 9.5 million in 2013, Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou told a news conference.

The country's tourism sector, an important source of foreign currency, suffered a series of blows since the January 2011 revolution which toppled Hosni Mubarak.