Minister of Tourism Rania Al-Mashat foresees that possibly 10 mn tourists will be visiting Egypt in 2018 in a feat that will see the industry contributing almost 15% to the country’s GDP this year, Reuters reports.

“In 2017, we closed the year at around 7.5 mn [visitors]. Since the start of 2018, the numbers are very handsome and there is a very steep slope [of growth],” Al-Mashat told Reuters on November 6.

Al-Mashat is yet to announce tourists’ figures for this year, but she underlined that her predictions for Egypt’s tourism sector will make it the country’s fastest-growing sector again.

The country has been working on a number of projects in hopes of boosting figures of tourism, which used to contribute substantially to the GDP.

The tourism minister said that Egypt, as a tourist destination, still has a lot to offer, pointing out that the new 165,000-square-meter Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), which will be completed in 2020, will be a distinctive symbol of Egyptian tourism.