Hurghada broke into the 100 most-visited cities worldwide in 2019, coming in at number 82, according to a report by Euromonitor International. “With infrastructure improvement, such as the renovation of Terminal 2 at Hurghada International Airport and investment in the hotel sector, the city is expected to see a growth of over 41% during 2019, which will further elevate its ranking,” the report says. Euromonitor notes that the Red Sea resort town could soon make it to the top 50 cities on the ranking, provided the political and security situation remains stable and the government keeps up its tourism promotion and development work. Cairo, meanwhile, was the 42nd most-visited city worldwide this year, rising five spots from last year. International arrivals to Egypt’s capital city rose 18.3% y-o-y to 6.8 mn in 2019 from 5.8 mn in 2018.

As a whole, Egypt remains North Africa’s most popular tourist destination, which Euromonitor attributes to the Tourism Ministry’s “active reform strategy” and the return of UK and Russian tourists. In the MENA region, Cairo is the fourth most popular city to visit. Hong Kong and Bangkok remain the top two cities on the ranking, while New York City fell out of the top 10 cities. Bloomberg also has the story.