"Tourist arrivals in Egypt over the past four years have increased by 66 per cent," according to official statistics.Around 8.6 million tourists visited Egypt last year against 5.1 million in 2002, said Abu Bakr el-Gendi, the Chairman of the Central Agency for General Mobilisation and Statistics, in a newsletter quoted by the Middle East News Agency.

Visitors from west and south Europe topped the arrivals in Egypt last year with 4.6 million, followed by eastern Europeans 1.34 million and the Middle Easterners 1.31 million.