Brits go Abroad Less, Tourism to Egypt and Others Up 30%

London - 16/07/2009 The Office of National Statistics (UK) has released its figures on tourism for 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, and it revealed some interesting facts.

British tourism abroad was 0.6% lower in 2008 than in 2007. In the second quarter of this year, British tourism abroad was a further 2% down on the previous quarter. Annually tourism was 8% lower in the 12 months ending May 2009 than the previous 12 months.

Spain and France were still the two most popular destinations by a long way sharing 36% of all tourism from Britain in 2008, followed by the USA, the Irish Republic, Italy, Germany and Portugal. However, tourism dropped to many the established destinations last year.

Upcoming destinations that saw a marked rise in tourism from Britain were Egypt, Romania, Slovakia and Mexico, all up by 30% or more on 2007's figure. This confirms what the Association of British Travel Agents told Write About Property's Liam Bailey several weeks ago; that tourism had risen around 25% on average for the last few years, and would continue to rise at that rate.

This is another reason why Egypt is one of the best places in the world to make a property investment according to overseas property specialists Azure Overseas, director Frank Crowley said:

"Egypt has the potential for massive economic growth in the next 10-15 years, and this is before you even take tourism into account. The economy is based around agricultural exports and the export of natural gas. The government is now trying to see that this growth is better distributed to the population. As this happens demand will rise for property in Egypt providing a reliable exit strategy when it is time to sell. Rising tourism means rising rental yields in the meantime."

Azure Overseas is currently marketing Egypt property for sale priced from £33,000 for a luxury 2 bedroom apartment in Hurghada.