How Russian tourism turned into a political pressure point: The past year and a half of Egypt’s efforts to fulfill Russia’s demands to resume flights have made it clear that Russia is not actually concerned with Egypt’s airport security and is using its tourism as leverage to pursue its political agenda, Youssef El Oumy says in a column penned for Al Masry Al Youm. Russia’s position of strength is a result of Egypt’s past reliance on a small number of countries for the majority of its tourism inflows. El Oumy says industry players are stressing the importance of diversifying their inbound markets with a view to ensuring that no single country accounts for more than 10% of our tourism inflows.

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