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Revenues from ancient Egyptian monuments such as the pyramids have fallen by 95% since Egypt's 2011 revolution, the country's antiquities minister has said.
Revenues fell from 3bn Egyptian pounds (£250m) in 2010 to just 125m (£10.5m) in 2014, Mamdouh el-Damaty told al-Mehwar, a private Egyptian television channel.
The drop has left the ministry – which derives most of its income from tourist revenues – struggling to pay thousands of staff. "The current yearly income is good enough to pay the salaries of the ministry's employees for just two months," Damaty said in the interview.
Tourism in Egypt has been decimated since 2011, with media reports of social unrest coupled with western travel warnings putting off holidaymakers from travelling to most of the nation's famous destinations. Only 9.5 million tourists stayed in Egypt's hotels in 2013, compared to 14.7 million in 2010.
Footfall has started to pick up in Egypt's Red Sea resorts but visitors to its historic sites in Cairo, Luxor and Aswan – from where the ministry derives most of its income – are still few and far between.
On one night this month in Luxor, which houses the tomb of Tutankhamun among other pharaonic treasures, just 264 foreigners slept in the city's hotels, according to police.
"It's dead," said Mena Melad, the editor of the Luxor Times. "It's even worse than in 1997 after the massacre of the tourists" at the Hatshepsut temple in the Valley of the Kings. "There are lots of people who have given up working in tourism and are trying to find new work."
The tourism minister, Hisham Zaazou, said a rise in Arab visitors had bolstered this year's figures – but only in the sun and sea destinations.
"There are more Arabs arriving into the country from the Gulf, and from Jordan and Lebanon," said Zaazou. "But although we're hearing some better figures about Red Sea and southern Sinai, we still have a very big challenge in Luxor, Cairo and Aswan."
• This article was amended on Sunday 31 August 2014. The original headline said Egypt's tourism revenues had fallen by 95%. In fact, revenues from ancient monuments fell by 95%, while overall tourism revenues were down by about 54%.
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