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The Egyptian Tourist Office has announced that they will match all funds spent by UK tour operators for holidays in Egypt, according to Travel Weekly. Egypt first started offering tour operators the matched funding deal eight years ago and after a huge success the country has decided to renew the deal to attract further tourists to Egypt. The matched funds will be supplied by the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and the size of the tour operator as well as the quantity of tourists they flew out to Egypt the year before will be taken into account. The newly appointed UK director of the Egyptian State Tourist Office, El Husseini, stated she is looking forward to working closely with tour operators and will push the media and advertising side of the deal. El Husseini is optimistic about Egypt's future and believes 2012 will be a good year for the country, "Once the revolution is over and elections have happened (end of May) it will be business as usual." The new director isn't the only one who is confident Egypt will return to tourism levels before the revolution. At a recent reception at the Egyptian Embassy in London Hatem Seif El Nasr, Egyptian ambassador to the UK, commented: "We want to re-energise Egypt. I only see the future of tourism in Egypt very positively and moving in a forward direction. We hope by July the situation will be totally stable." The number of British tourists travelling to Egypt has grown at a steady rate year-on-year and even though the revolution set Egypt back last year, large numbers of tourists have visited the country in the first quarter of 2012. One travel expert commented: "Things have calmed down and people are feeling much more confident about it. I think it will bounce back very quickly as Egypt is always on people's wish lists." Source: Travel Weekly