Tag Archive
Egypt gives stranded tourists the royal treatment
Image by bee! via Flickr Although hotels are overbooked by 7 percent in the Red Sea resort town of Hurghada and well over 80 percent in Sharm El Sheikh, hotel owners have been ordered (by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism) not to expel guests who have overstayed their reservations. Tour companies must continue to foot the bill... »
Tourists stranded in Egypt
Image by interactives via Flickr Thousands of tourists holidaying in Egypt were stranded at airports across the country on Monday as volcanic ash emanating from Iceland swept through European skies. Egypt Air canceled 10 flights from Cairo to western and northern Europe on Monday, an airport official said. Flights to European airports that remained open were... »
Egypt pledges to become carbon neutral in 10 years
Image via Wikipedia Egypt recently announced its plan to become completely carbon neutral by 2020. The $238 million project hopes to accomplish this through the introduction of renewable energy, reduction of water use, improvement of waste management, and, in the future, the use of electric boats and hybrid buses. The green initiatives are planned to start... »
Rare storm hits Egypt
Four people were killed and more than 50 hurt as bad weather wreaked havoc across Egypt, pelting the capital with a freak hail storm and smashing a luxury liner into a pier, officials and media said Friday. In the northern Mediterranean city of Alexandria, waves as high as a two-storey building pounded the coast, media... »
Egypt tourism making a comeback
The Egyptian economy’s biggest foreign currency earner staged a comeback over the summer and fall, revealing that the global slowdown’s impact on the sector has turned out to be relatively moderate. The Ministry of Tourism announced in October that Egypt saw a 6.4% drop in tourism revenue in the first nine months of 2009. The... »
Tourist boat sinks in Red Sea, two missing
Two Spanish tourists were missing in the Red Sea on Thursday after their dive boat sank in rough water off Egypt’s Sinai coast, a popular beach holiday and diving destination. Fourteen other Spanish tourists and seven Egyptian crew were rescued after the boat capsized and sank near Ras Mohammed. A naval boat was looking for... »
Egypt launches world’s first Arabic web domain
Communications minister Tarek Kamel said the new domain name would be “.masr” written in the Arabic alphabet. It translates as “.Egypt”. Last month, internet regulator Icann voted to allow non-Latin web addresses. Domain names can now be written in Arabic, Chinese and other scripts. Mr Kamel, who was speaking at the start of the Internet Governance... »
‘Made in China’ now made in Egypt
Around 950 Chinese companies have set up operations in Egyptian free zones, representing a total investment of nearly 300 million US dollars. Cheap raw materials and favourable export conditions have given them easy access to foreign markets. Local salaries are low enough to compete with those of Chinese workers, even with a system of bonuses... »
Sharm el-Sheikh among the Top Ten package holiday resorts
Image by WomEOS via Flickr This year, Sharm el-Sheikh has broken into the list of Top Ten package holiday resorts, an extraordinary achievement for a place largely unknown less than 20 years ago. In 1967, Sharm-el-Sheik, which sits at the mouth of the Strait of Tiran, became the unlikely trigger for the Six Day War when... »
Egyptian Family Buys London’s Trophy Stafford Hotel for $128M
The wealthy El Sharkawy family of Cairo has outbid the Guiness Peat Group in the $128 million purchase (£77.5 million) of the 105-room, 300-year-old Stafford Hotel in London’s historic St. James’s Place district. The sale marked the largest transaction of its kind in three years in the United Kingdom’s lukewarm hospitality industry, according to published... »
