Egyptian tourism officials insisted the three car bombs that exploded Thursday night at Sinai tourist spots at the end of a Jewish holiday would not hurt their industry, even though Israelis and the Europeans provide the bulk of the nation's $4.5 billion in tourist revenues.
They ruled out a repeat of the tourism crisis like one that followed a massacre of 58 foreign tourists at a pharaonic temple in Luxor in 1997 - Egypt's last major terrorist strike.
Hala al-Khatib, spokeswoman for Egypt's tourism ministry, said Taba - just across the border from the Israeli city of Eilat - has 2,560 hotel rooms, a tiny fraction of the 140,000 rooms in Egypt.
"I don't think there will be any long-term effect," she said. "This is a specific attack on a very limited area. If you look at the time and the place, I don't think they are meant to hit the industry."
As thousands of Israelis streamed east out of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, Alaa Montasser waited for a bus to take him home to Cairo.
The 21-year-old Montasser was slated for his first day of work Thursday as an accountant at the Taba Hilton, his first decent job, when terrorists bombed the hotel, killing dozens of people.
"In this country there is very little luck," Montasser said. "Every time we pick ourselves up we get hit on the head."
Travel agent Beatrice Beren at Voyages Itineris in Paris said she did not believe the main Egyptian destinations for European travelers were at risk.
"We haven't had any cancellations yet. People don't really seem worried," she said.
Along with the Suez Canal, tourism is one of Egypt's top two foreign-currency earners. Last year's revenues comprised nearly 12 percent of the nation's gross domestic product and provided 2.2 million jobs, al-Khatib said.
A record 6.1 million tourists visited Egypt last year, and that number already has been surpassed in the first eight months of this year, with 6.3 million visitors, she said.
Nigel Hamilton, a builder merchant from Nottingham, Britain, arrived in Taba on Thursday night and was about to check into the Hilton when the bomb exploded.
"I was looking at the balconies, telling my wife, `Look how great it is,' and boom! It hit," he said.
But on Sunday, he was still in Egypt, soaking up the sun 15 miles to the south at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. He said he would stay until Thursday as planned.
"Life is a risk wherever you are these days," he said. "We're going to try to make the best of it."
Around him, the pool and beach were crowded. Hundreds of tourists - mainly British and Italian - sat under umbrellas, reading and chatting. Stores and restaurants did brisk business.
Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, travelers have become accustomed to the threat of terrorism and are harder to spook, some tour operators said.
"The attack will of course prevent one or two bookings," said Robin Zimmermann, spokeswoman for the German travel agency TUI.
Six Paris travel agencies surveyed said they had not seen a single cancellation. The Milan, Italy-based Viaggi del Ventaglio said there were few cancellations.
"I expected that both tourists already staying in Egypt and those who have just bought tours would cancel their vacations in droves," Anna Podgornaya, general sales manager of the Moscow-based Pegas Touristik travel agency, told the Interfax news agency.
"Surprisingly enough, however, many people have taken the incident quite calmly."