Tourism Booming.

[Hafiz]

Tourism Booming.

I sometimes wonder about multiple meanings for the word booming.

Al Ahram has the positive story based on a real estate agents report – probably a better source than talking to Military Intelligence about anything, although one should always have a scrub and a shower after dealing with a real estate agent..

They leave out a few things – unattractive things – but that’s al Ahram’s view about ‘suitable news’ and avoids being thrown in jail or a virginity or anal test. http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... ers-I.aspx

The idiots take the July figures of Colliers International on hotel occupancy and turn them into a forecast when the forecasts are all worse that July – how convenient. They also use these figures to proclaim that the tourism strategy is working – if so that would be a first. http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... ers-I.aspx

The forecast occupancies for Cairo, Sharm, Hurghada and Alex are 68, 48, 54 and 74. Seems pretty unexciting. The daily spends are 112, 43, 50 and 76 with hotel rates on the coast an average of between 21 and 27.

There are lower occupancy rates in the region but not many. What Egypt on the coast excels at is being a bucket shop comparable in price with disease infected Guinea or war torn and diseased Liberia.

Where the bulk of Egypt tourists go, and hopefully stay in, is the coast and the prices couldn’t be lower but people spend almost nothing over their hotel costs so the benefits to Egypt are obvious – minimal – and the jobs created are clear – slave jobs. Its an industry that has been managed with an iron fist for well over a generation so they have got exactly what they wanted, Couldn’t get better.

Here is an example of how the government planned the industry. Aqaba is broadly comparable with the Egyptian coast and the average hotel prices are very similar. How is it then that the average daily spend (for other than hotel) in Aqaba is three times the spend on the coast. So you pay a hotel bill, there are some jobs connected with that but basically you are paying for the building. A big daily spend on the other hand inevitably goes into more pockets, particularly outside the Hitler Bunker, and creates more jobs particularly for ordinary people. In Beirut the daily spend for a similar hotel is 4 times the coast. In Kuwait City for a cheaper hotel its 5 times. In Dubai in that Palm development and staying in a slightly more expensive hotel its 7 times. Their tourism is much more that hotels, the cost of hotels and a few dollars over.

So everyone in the region has tourists paying roughly the same for hotels but pouring much larger amounts into the general economy – except Egypt.

So here is another world record. Egyptian tourists spend about the least in the world per day outside their hotel. That’s an achievement to then tell the world you’ve done well, rather it seems you’ve got the equivalent of a homeless hostel and imagine its something else.

I think its called Low Rent Tourism. Might make money for some – particularly Egyptian businesses without any skills – but it does nothing for the millions of unemployed and the larger number who are poor.

In determining the suffering index one should also take into account that many of the hotel investors are on tax holidays, got free utilities and the 30-60 Military Hotels were stolen from the taxpayer and pay no tax. Therefore these businesses contribute little and pay nothing to the taxpayer for all the benefits given them.
http://www.colliers.com/-/media/files/e ... y-2018.pdf

As is typically the case al Ahram fails to mention the dramatic differences between Egypt and the rest of the middle east - particularly in the money that flows outside hotels into ordinary hands.

[Major Thom]

You would think this report was in the "Whitehouse Times" but no matter it takes some believing.

[crewmeal]

Talk to the locals here in Luxor and they will tell you that there are no tourists which means no money to feed their families. Walking through the bizarres I can believe that because you only see a handful of tourists looking for bargains.

Hafiz - Perhaps they have a govt ‘think tank’ a phrase I will never understand.

[Who2]

I spotted 4 tourists today they looked bewildered....

[carrie]

Well there have been very few tourists around for the past few years, one day it will sink in that they are not coming back. Not to Luxor anyway so why keep on I am much more interestd in the missing tuk tuks.

[hatusu]

Well there have been very few tourists around for the past few years, one day it will sink in that they are not coming back. Not to Luxor anyway so why keep on I am much more interestd in the missing tuk tuks.

Missing tuk tuks? What has happened - won't they be waiting when I get off the ferry in future?

[carrie]

No tuk tuks for a week now, apparently because they have no licence but i THOUGHT THEY HAD ALL BEEN TO GET THEIR LICENCES.Sorry gone into capitals for no reason and too lazy to correct.

[Moonstone]

I managed to get one on Friday but only because I knew a man who knew a man who had a cousin who knew a man...............

[Major Thom]

Do Tuk Tuks come under the same licenses as taxi's? If so I am led to believe the new licenses for taxi's are expensive. I suppose no license means no insurance. What a disaster if you have hired one and get injured in and accident.

[Hafiz]

Crewmeal. They may have a Think Tank - although thinking is not their strength - usually its more impulse/fear/stop gap thinking influences by the 300 families that one world expert thinks runs the place. In Egypt but few other places the idea of independent advice which questions standard practice is a suicide note. Most other places see good empirical research, debate, ebb and flow as a way of good decision making.

My point is that the 'thinking' has been done - Luxor is off the table (unclear whether its for ever or just the time being) and the Red Sea Coast and the universe size plans they have for the al Alemain area are on the table. This should be no surprise because its happened before - Alex was taken off the table ages ago and they have had the major museum there closed for 12-13 years for renovations that may have never started. If Cairo was ever on the table how come they have let Downtown fall down for 30-40 years and for the city to become the groping/molesting capital of the world.

My guess is that revenue per coast tourist is 1/2 to 1/3rd per day of those who/used to travel to Alex, Cairo, Luxor and Aswan so the beach model they like will deliver fewer benefits than alternatives. My guess is that coast tourists require fewer staff/move around less/don't go outside the compound to the jobs benefits are likely smaller and the money doesn't trickle into local businesses not 'owned' bu the compound owner.

The government fools argue that the coast is safer and use this to justify the shift away from traditional locations and also to justify the truck loads of taxpayer money offered to these large chains. Historically many more tourists have been killed in Sinai, Sharm and the Red Sea Coast that even in Luxor (31 years ago) and the numbers in Alex, Aswan and Cairo are very, very small. So their argument is bull except that hot air balloons in Luxor kill a lot and the government lies about the numbers in 20 years of repeated mistakes that resemble one another.

Another point which I haven't previously made is that hotels/restaurants in Alex. Cairo, Luxor and Aswan are a mixture of chains, international chains, medium sized local hotels sometimes part of a small family group and sometimes just a one off. At the 2 star level they are owned by ordinary people. On the coasts its international chain ownership, military ownership local ownership by rich locals. The big difference is the lack of medium sized facilities, say 10-70 beds, and the complete absence of ownership/control/management by medium Egyptian firms/families. There are no equivalents of the 2-3 star small hotel in these areas. All the money will go to one small group who will take all their profits off shore. People with decades of skills in the smaller venue are not even allowed to compete for the (probably) free land. This monomaniacal model on the coast is utterly unlike beach tourism in Portugal, Spain, the south of France, Italy, the Dalmation Coast, Greece and Turkey. All have gone for fixed models and some with a bias, like Greece, to local 2-4 star. Australian beach tourism, with one sewerage farm exception, is similar to the EU.

For the worlds greatest town planners, with iron fisted control and with hundreds of thousands of engineers they typically just move on to something expensive and new rather than work out what went wrong/fix it up. Maintenance, repair and renovation are unclean to them - ask the 400-800 Abrams tanks in 'storage' - really just not repaired. Their purchase value is $2.4 billion and $7.2 based on published purchase prices for various models) but we got them for free from the Yanks and we all know how children and the defective behave if they get used to getting everything for free.