SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Tourism bookings in Egypt’s main Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh have plunged in the wake of a Russian plane crash, officials said Wednesday, amid fears the airliner may have been downed by a bomb.

Some 80 percent of reservations have been canceled and at least 40 percent of tourists have left the Egyptian resort since the crash, said Hussein Fawzy, head of the region’s chamber of tourist facilities.
“They are not going to come back again. We will have nothing but a few Ukrainians and Belarusians,” he said by telephone.
Moscow has banned all flights to Egypt for at least several months, a severe blow for the tourism industry during the peak season for Russian visitors. Britain and Ireland have suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh.
US and British officials say the cause of the Oct. 31 crash, which killed all 224 people on board, was likely a bomb planted on the plane.
Earlier Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi made a surprise visit to the Sharm airport.
“Our visit today aims to reassure people inside and outside Egypt,” El-Sisi said after greeting some foreign tourists and wading through a packed terminal. “We want people who come here to be secure and safe and to live and go back safely to their countries,” he told private Egyptian broadcaster CBC.
Also Wednesday, a Russian search and rescue team that was brought to Egypt after the crash flew home to Moscow. The team of 48 had been recovering bodies at the crash site, some 70 km south of the peninsula’s northern city of El-Arish.