CAIRO, Jun 11 (Aswat Masriya) - Inbound tourism to Egypt increased by 7.4 percent in April, as the country welcomed 923.9 thousand tourists during the month, the state's statistical agency said on Thursday.

The number of tourists arriving in Egypt last April increased by almost a 100 thousand. The Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) said in a statement that Egypt had welcomed 859.9 thousand tourists in April 2014.

The majority of the tourists who visited Egypt in April arrived from eastern Europe, CAPMAS said, making up 42.2 percent of the tourists. Over 78 percent of the aforementioned hail from Russia.

Western Europe closely followed, with 34.3 percent of the tourists arriving from there. Tourists arriving from the Middle East meanwhile made up 12.3 percent of those who visited Egypt.

The number of Arab tourists visiting the country increased to 17.7 percent of the tourists visiting Egypt in April 2015, as opposed to 15.8 percent during the same month last year, CAPMAS said.

Tourism was a main source of income in Egypt until a popular uprising which toppled former President Hosni Mubarak's regime in 2011 triggered four years of political turmoil, taking its toll on the sector.

Even though tourism revenues rose to $7.5 billion throughout the year 2014, they remain below the figures prior to the January 2011 uprising. Revenues reached $12.5 billion in 2010, which is often referred to as the "peak year"  for tourism in Egypt.

The cabinet said last month that Egypt expects revenues from the tourism sector to reach $26 billion by 2020, as it is implementing a strategy to increase the number of tourists visiting annually to 20 million.

Yet, fears are mounting as a wave of militancy which has hit the country since mid-2013 began to target tourist sites.

A suicide bombing in the vicinity of the Karnak Temple in Egypt's tourist city of Luxor on Wednesday left five injured, threatening to stall the recovery of one of Egypt's most profitable sectors. Two of the three assailants who carried out the attack were killed.

The attack is the second to hit a tourist attraction in a little over a week. Unknown assailants attacked and killed two tourism policemen in an archaeological area near the Giza Pyramids on June 3.