2025 marked the end of Egypt’s tourism recovery and the start of its buildout
2025 was the year Egypt’s tourism sector decisively exited recovery mode and entered an expansion phase. While 2024 was defined by resilience and stabilizing foreign exchange flows, the main question facing policymakers and investors throughout 2025 was no longer whether demand would return, but whether Egypt could expand capacity fast enough to keep up.
The government openly returned to its target of welcoming 30 mn tourists annually, framing it less as a stretch goal and more as a planning baseline for the years ahead. On this front, the country seems to be making progress with 18.8 mn tourists having arrived in Egypt this year, up nearly 20% y-o-y, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said during his last weekly presser.
The GEM became a turning point
The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) officially opened in November after more than two decades in development, immediately reshaping tourism dynamics in Cairo and Giza. The museum is expected to draw 5 mn visitors annually. Its inauguration triggered a surge in interest in land surrounding the site, with hotel occupancy across Cairo and Giza hitting 100% during the opening week.
The central bottleneck throughout 2025 was hotel capacity
To hit their goal of 30 mn visitors, officials have repeatedly stressed that the sector needs to add roughly 240k–250k new rooms in hotel capacity. Egypt topped Africa’s hotel development pipeline during the year in a study by W Hospitality Group, with 143 hotels and nearly 34k rooms under development — accounting for about 32.5% of all rooms being built across the continent. Greater Cairo alone had close to 17.8k rooms in the pipeline, making it the single largest hotel development market in Africa. (The study includes data from 50 regional and international hotel chains, so it may be undercounting somewhat.)
Incentives got simpler — and more aggressive
To support this expansion, the Madbouly government moved away from heavy reliance on subsidized financing and toward removing structural obstacles. The cabinet approved a resolution exempting land and buildings from improvement fees when they are converted into hotels, provided developers meet strict operational deadlines (one to four years, depending on size).