Egypt received 9 million foreign tourists in 2006, a 5.5% increase over 2005. This was stated by Ahmed El Khadem, the Chairman of the Egyptian Tourism Authority. The maximum number of tourists came from countries like the United Kingdom, Russia, and Germany in Europe. These countries sent around a million tourists each. Another major chunk of tourists came from the Middle East. Spain too contributed handsomely to Egyptian tourism with the number of tourists from Spain showing an impressive increase toward the end of the year.