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As a replica of Tutankhamun's tomb opens in Egypt today, tourism bosses are hoping it will present the country in a more positive light.

Tourism Minister Hisham Zazou said the inauguration would be an opportunity to bring attention back to Egypt's tourism industry and show that it is improving following recent terror attacks.

An exact copy of the famous tomb has been built in order to help protect the original, which is being damaged by the quantity of people visiting.

The delicate walls of the tomb are crumbling and there is a risk that the whole site could end up collapsing, due to changes in temperature and humidity caused by influxes of tourists.

The impressive replica has been created using high-tech 3D scanners to create the replica of King Tutankhamun tomb in a process that has taken several years to complete.

It is hoped visitors will go to see the replica instead of causing further damage to the original, which could well be closed to the public eventually.

During the opening ceremony Zazou said he hoped that the tourism sector would witness progress as of the next tourism season.

Egypt's tourism revenues have dropped a massive 43 per cent so far this year due to ongoing unrest keeping holidaymakers away.

The troubled country confirmed that tourism revenues had almost halved for the first three months of this year - traditionally when travellers flock to its beaches for some winter sun.

Painstaking: The facsimile of the sarcophagus and the burial chamber of the Tomb of Tutankhamun will be placed near Howard Carter's Luxor home in Egypt this month

The 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's burial chamber by Howard Carter, seen here with benefactor Lord Carnarvon, prompted a worldwide fascination that still endures

The country has been unstable since President Hosni Mubarak was deposed in 2011, but the tourism sector had managed to remain relatively bouyant - particularly in the well-protected Red Sea Resorts.

However, in February a coach carrying Korean tourists was bombed by Islamist extremists, which caused countries around the world to impose sever restrictions even on tourists hoping to visit the popular resort towns of Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada.

The painstakingly-designed replica King Tut exhbition is being billed as a tourist draw, but it will present visitors with the moral dilemma of paying to see the original tomb or helping to preserve its future existence by visiting the facsimile version instead.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities commissioned carefully-crafted replicas of the tombs of Seti I, Nefertari and Tutankhamun back in 2009.

The move was a bid to stave off further irreparable damage caused by decades of tourists flocking to see the boy king's burial chamber and other ancient tombs. 

The replica, produced by a Madrid-based company, Factum Arte, which has worked with museums all over the world, is installed just outside Howard Carter's house, around half a mile from where the original lays in Luxor's Valley of the Kings.

On November 4th 1922, after years of toiling away in the Valley of the Kings, British archaeologist Howard Carter sensationally discovered Tutankhamun's tomb and revealed one of the most significant Egyptian excavations of all time.

The fascination with Carter's story and the perpetual promise of more discoveries has seen tourists pouring into the sun-drenched site although there has been a significant dip in tourism this year as the country has suffered from ongoing political protests.

One of the Factum Arte team, Briton Adam Lowe, is hopeful that the replica will become as popular as the original as visitors 'become part of the force that protects it [the original] rather than a force that is leading to its destruction.'

He told the BBC: 'They will have the thrill of visiting something they know is 3,000 years old and they have the guilt of knowing, as they look at it, that their presence is part of the reason why it won't be there in another 100 years' time.'