The Egyptian Ministry of Interior has announced a new multiple-entry visa service that allows holders to enter the country multiple times for five years. This visa costs $700 and allows its holder to stay for up to 90 days per trip. The price includes the visa fee.
Despite a decrease in tourism from Russia and Ukraine due to tensions between the two countries, Egypt welcomed 11.7 million visitors in 2022, a growth rate of 46% from the previous year. The country relies heavily on tourism to boost its economy, especially during challenging times in the global economy. Increasing the number of tourists and tourism revenue will create more job opportunities and help meet the country's foreign exchange needs. Egypt is aiming to receive 15 million foreign tourists this year.
The Egyptian government plans to boost the annual number of tourists to 30 million by 2028. They are implementing various measures to achieve this goal, such as increasing airline seats in Egypt, enhancing the overall tourist experience, and creating a favorable investment climate to add more hotel rooms. New facilities for issuing tourist visas have been introduced in line with this.
In March 2023, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities provided facilities for visitors from around the world, aiming to stimulate tourism to Egyptian destinations and facilitate their visit, through a multiple-entry visa and another available upon arrival in several countries, according to specific conditions.
The Ministry announced the creation of a personalized tourism product with 14 work paths agreed upon in collaboration with different ministries and authorities. The goal is to achieve an annual growth rate of 25%-30% in Egypt's tourism industry by focusing on three main areas: increasing airline seats, enhancing the tourist experience, and improving the investment climate for tourism while also increasing the number of hotel rooms.
Achieving the targeted growth of incoming tourism to Egypt requires speeding up the issuance of visas and facilitating their procedures, as well as improving the experience of tourists, starting from their arrival at the airport, their movement to their place of residence, and tourist tours within Egypt to various destinations.
In the first two months of this year, there was a 30% increase in the number of tourists visiting Egypt compared to the same period in 2022.
It's worth mentioning that Egypt has expanded the list of countries eligible for electronic visas to 28 new nationalities in addition to the existing 46. This means that 74 nationalities can now obtain visas electronically worldwide.
Thanks to a new multiple-entry visa, Egyptian tourism is expected to become more competitive with neighboring travel destinations, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. To grow Egyptian tourism, the government will need to try to streamline the visa application process by partnering with foreign tourism agencies and providing specific conditions for tourist visas. This should make it easier for tourists to obtain visas and encourage more tourism companies to operate in Egypt.