Adel Rady, chairperson of the Investors Association in Marsa Allam, said that the tourism activities in the region are continuing to rise with the increase in the flow of Italian tourism during the past two months.
Rady told Daily News Egypt that occupancies in some hotels range between 70 and 80%, while it remain below 30% in some others.
He added that there is a significant improvement of inflow from Italy this year, especially over the last three months.
There are some 20,000 rooms in Marsa Alam with investments of EGP 20bn. Rady said that the region can become a huge tourism destination that surpasses Sharm El Sheikh.
Rady expected the region to see high demand in the coming winter season, compared to the previous year, where occupancies remained under 20%.
Occupancy rates are higher in hotels that are linked to contracts with international hotel management companies compared to Egyptian hotels, as the former can have a strong presence in the European markets and promote their hotels in Egypt.
Deputy chairman of Tourism Investors Association in Marsa Allam, Tarek Shalaby, said that the increase in hotel occupancy would represent a major impact on hotels opening again before the beginning of 2018.
He explained that there are more than 20 hotels that stopped working due to low occupancies, yet the situation is improving, he noted.
Moreover, he predicted the tourism in the region to rise again and help hotels pay the loans premiums to banks, increase labour, and pay more taxes.
Marsa Alam, along with the city of Hurghada, is one of the most important tourist areas in the Red Sea governorate, where both cities account for 90% of the governorate’s total rooms, which amount to 69,000 rooms.
“We hope that the average occupancy of Red Sea hotels will be near the 80% mark across all hotels,” he stressed.
