The recently launched Al-Hambra cruise ship sailed only twice on the Nile before President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February and has been docked since then on the banks of the river, its plush fittings accumulating dust awaiting the return of tourists.

Aswan, the site of majestic Pharaonic ruins and one of the most renowned stops on Egypt’s Nile cruises, has few of the visitors who usually throng its tree-lined river banks. Instead, many ships are moored waiting for customers.

Of the well over 300 cruise liners normally touring this section of the world’s longest river, part of a tourist industry that’s a major source of revenue in Egypt, not more than forty are still setting sail, operators say.

Tourist figures have plummeted, dealing a blow to the countless Egyptians whose livelihoods depend on the fourteen million or more tourists who once came to Egypt yearly, providing 1 in 8 jobs in a country beset by high unemployment.