Cairo – Mubasher: The number of tourists arrived Egypt in the first six months of 2016 declined 51.2% year-on-year to 2.3 million from 4.8 million, said the Central Agency for Public Mobilizations and Statistics (CAPMAS) on Monday.

The state-run agency attributed this decline to lower visitors from Russia, United Kingdom and Germany by 54.9%, 14.9% and 6.4% respectively after a number of terrorist attacks on Egypt, including the crash of the Russian aeroplane in Sinai.

Over 2015, the number of arrivals fell to 9.3 million tourists, down 5.6% from 9.9 million tourists  in 2014.

The tourism sector, a vital part of the economy and a key source of hard currency, was hard-hit by last year’s downing of a Russian airliner where 224 people onboard were killed.