Front Page Opinion

 

Stuart Forster reports from Egypt

 

It was fascinating to be present in Egypt this week, during a time of uncertainty and change.

Undramatically though, I was down in the Red Sea holiday resort of Sharm el Sheikh and not on Tahrir Square, in Cairo.
Sharm was calm. Alarmingly so, from the perspective of hoteliers and people who depend on the tourism industry for their livelihoods. Many would-be holidaymakers cancelled their bookings, leaving the resort far emptier than would normally be the case at this time of year. By my last night in Sharm I noticed that bars were closing early and a couple of restaurants had not even opened, such was the dearth of patrons.

“I believe very much that the situation is not going to last for long. Here in Sharm we are on a different continent; we’re not in Africa. We are 550km from Cairo and the only connection is one tunnel under the Suez Canal. You could be in a different country. Everybody here is here for the tourism. Tourism is our livelihood; if there is no tourism there is no life,” said Emad F. Aziz, the Chairman of the Savoy Group, which operates the three of Sharm el Sheikh’s resorts, plus the Soho Square entertainment and dining area.

Hotel and resort owners are using the slack period to undertake maintenance and renovations. And due to the shortfall in bookings, many businesses are already looking at cost saving measures. Even just two weeks after the first protests, staff members were being sent on leave.

It will be interesting to see how things now develop in the Red Sea resorts. Will the resorts have to introduce discounting to win back patrons? The answer may well be to promote Sharm el Sheikh as a distinct brand, distancing it from Egypt as a whole.

 

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