(AFP Photo)
Hotels in tourist areas have started to launch their Eid Al-Fitr offers to attract Egyptians during the upcoming holiday, according to Wassim Mohy El-Din, former chairman of the Chamber of Hotels. He added that coastal hotels on the North Coast, Alexandria, and the Red Sea, present the most offers for the holiday.
According to Mohy El-Din, the hotel offers range between one or two extra nights for guests, in an attempt to attract large numbers, increase occupancies, and decrease prices.
Prices of five-star rooms per night in Alexandria range between EGP 800 to EGP 1,500 per person, while in Sharm El-Sheikh prices are between EGP 700 and EGP 1,000 per night, Mohy El-Din said.
However, a member at the Egyptian Chamber of Hotels, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that Ain Sokhna hotels have the highest increase in prices over the Eid holiday. The five-star room prices of some hotels are reaching EGP 2,000 per person. He explained that the reason for this is the short distance between Ain Sokhna and Cairo.
The member also revealed that hotels in Cairo, Luxor and Aswan will have the least occupancies over the next Eid holiday, as Egyptians prefer to go to coastal areas. This increases occupancies in the Red Sea to 75%, Sharm El-Sheikh to 65%, and Ain Sokhna and Alexandria to 100%.
The cost of staying at a hotel during the Eid holiday increases by 20% to 30% as a result of the increase in operating costs of all Egyptian hotels compared to last season, especially in the regions on which demand increases, according to the member.
Adel Rady, a member of the Red Sea Tourism Investment Association, expected an increase in the occupancy rates in hotels of Ain Sokhna during the Eid holiday.
Despite Rady’s expectations of an increase in Red Sea occupancies, he said: “The increase will not be equal in all the cities of the governorate, and Hurghada will have the highest occupancies compared to the rest of the cities.”
Rady hopes that flights to all tourist destinations would be at low prices for Egyptians, which will increase hotel occupancies, as flight tickets are a big obstacle against Egyptian families’ visits to tourist destinations, whether coastal or historic.
There are 225,000 hotel rooms in Egypt, the Red Sea area and South Sinai take up 65% of them, while the rest are distributed among Luxor, Cairo, and North Coast.
Anthony Ghazal, a hotel owner in the North Coast, expects occupancies to increase to 60% in the hotels of the region starting from the Eid holiday, adding that the summer season is still long, and people can still enjoy the sea. The accommodation prices in the North Coast increase compares to other coastal areas in Egypt in light of the increase in operating costs, such as food, water, or fuel, said Ghazal.
