Key highlights
- Egypt is offering a multi-year visa and adding more nationalities to its visa-on-arrival eligibility
- A five-year multiple-entry visa will be available for $700, while a single-entry 30-day visa on arrival can now be obtained by more than 180 nationalities for $25.
According to Egypt’s Minister of Tourism & Antiquities, Ahmed Issa, more nationalities are now eligible for visas-on-arrival, and the country is also introducing a multiyear visa program.
A single-entry, 30-day visa on arrival is now available to more than 180 nationalities for $25, while a five-year multiple-entry visa will be available for $700. Chinese and Indian nationals are among the number of new nationalities.
The changes are a result of a plan to increase tourism, which is a key source of foreign exchange and employment for Egypt’s economy, which has been negatively impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
The country hopes to increase the 11.7 million tourists it received in 2017 by 25 to 30 percent annually, bringing the total to 30 million by 2028. When compared to the first two months of last year, January and February saw a more than a 30% increase in the number of visitors.
Improving archeological discoveries
To promote cultural tourism, the ministry has also enhanced the nation’s archaeological discovery.
For instance, according to Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, two new statues have recently been found in Saqqara.
He added that twenty museums had opened in the previous four years, and the Greco-Roman Museum in Alexandria would soon follow suit and the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum, which has been under construction since 2005, is anticipated to open sometime between October and January.
New tourism strategy
According to the nation’s statistics agency, Egypt’s tourism numbers decreased to 3.7 million in 2020 during the pandemic from approximately 13 million in 2019.
This is called for a new tourism strategy which is being led by the Minister of tourism who has called for an investment of about $30 billion, a doubling of the number of hotel rooms to 300,000 as well as increasing the number of seats on arriving planes.
The minister has hopes that the country would achieve its target in tourism as it has increased from countries like the US, UK, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. The number of Italian tourists increased by 250 percent.
- “Even with the decrease of our top two (Russia and Ukraine) tourist sources, the results indicate that we will be able to reach or surpass our goal”
- “China has the potential to become one of the top-10 source markets for Egypt”, he said. This is because, in 2019, about 220,000 Chinese tourists visited Egypt, of the 150 million Chinese tourists worldwide.
Egypt will also be making entry procedures easier for Turks, Algerians, Israelis, Moroccans, and Iranians, with details being announced in the coming days, he said.
With these figures, Mr. Issa says he is confident that Egypt would reach this year’s target of 15 million tourists, which would make it a record year. This is why the multiyear visa and more countries on the visa-on-arrival list have been expanded.
Previously, as of last April, citizens from 180 nationalities were eligible for visas on arrival if they already had visas for the UK, US, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, or Schengen countries in their passports.
Nigerian citizens are still required to have a visa when traveling to Egypt for tourism. The visa allows a short stay of a 30-day period.
Although Egypt is not on the list of countries that Nigerian passport holders can obtain a visa on arrival, the tourist visa will be seen as a welcome development.
Can Nigeria Apply for the Egypt visa??