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NORTHERN BEAUTY
BY CAM MCGRATH & AMENA BAKR
Al Sahel comes alive each year as Cairenes fleeing
the summer heat abandon the capital each weekend and flock to the
Mediterranean coast’s gorgeous white sand beaches. The goal
now, say developers, is to keep these beaches busy year-round.
For the last two decades, traveling to Al Sahel (the North Coast)
on weekends has been a summertime ritual for Egyptians fortunate
enough to own or rent a chalet on the gorgeous 500-kilometer coastline
stretching from Alexandria to the Libyan border. Al Sahel’s
white sand beaches and stunning turquoise waters easily surpass
those of more famous Mediterranean seaside resort regions such as
the Costa del Sol and Côte d’Azur, but overdevelopment
and under-marketing has kept it from realizing its full potential.
For two months each year, July and August, Al Sahel buzzes with
activity: beaches teem with life, the sea churns with water activities
and teens cruise the streets until dawn. And just to make sure vacationing
Cairenes don’t get homesick, branches of their favorite stores,
cafés and restaurants open in upscale Al Sahel resorts such
as Marina, Diplomats’ Village and Hacienda.
Then, even as the hot summer nights continue into September, the
shops close, the chalets are locked tight and the population all
but disappears. Al Sahel goes into a 10-month hibernation.
What a waste, says Mahmoud El-Kaissouni, chairman of the Environmental
Affairs & Sustainable Tourism Committee at the Egyptian Tourist
Federation (ETF). “The problem with the North Coast is that
people only go there for a few weeks and they lock it up for the
rest of the year.”
He says the main reason why Egyptians have never thought of the
North Coast as anything more than a summer recreation area is because
the entire coastline lacks basic services, particularly health and
education facilities. Existing services are of such low standard
or sparsely located that year-round use is out of the question.
Right stuff, wrong approach
Certainly it’s no easier for foreign tourists, who are mesmerized
by the clear turquoise waters but discouraged by the lack of accommodation,
transportation and tourist facilities. And that’s a shame,
say developers, because Al Sahel’s beaches have the potential
to be tourist magnets.
Beaches sell, says Amr Abdel Samie, director of hotels for resort
developer and operator Amer Group. He explains that the biggest
tourist attractions in countries such as Tunisia, Spain and Greece
are the hotels and resorts that line their Mediterranean coastline.
“We have a coastline that is at least three times as big as
Tunisia’s; the only difference is that we don’t make
good use of it.”
But changes are already under way, insists El-Kaissouni, who says
the Ministry of Tourism is formulating plans to better utilize the
North Coast’s tourism potential. In doing so, the ministry
has taken a few pointers from Spain, whose beaches have a similar
climate yet far more tourists. Even in the winter, the beaches of
southern Spain’s Costa del Sol are packed. “We noticed
that Spain attracts a very large number of tourists in the winter
as many people in Europe consider the temperature of the Mediterranean
Sea, even in the winter, still warm enough to go swimming,”
says El-Kaissouni.
But unlike Egypt, Spain has managed to market its resources. “What
the Spanish tourism ministry did was offer people who own cabins
and houses near the beach the chance to rent them out to tourists
year-round on the condition that the units conform to the ministry’s
standards,” he says. “I think that in the coming five
years, our tourism ministry will apply the same idea, what they
call ‘residential tourism,’ to all the towns and tourist
villages that remain empty throughout the year.
Egypt’s roughly 120 North Coast tourist villages, each with
400 to 1,500 residential units, represent a huge opportunity for
residential tourism. But only if, as El-Kaissouni explains, the
government is able to agree on a legal framework and adopt a set
of standards governing how owners can rent out their properties.
A fresh start
The 105-kilometer coastline between Agami and Al Alamein is scarred
with dozens of failed “tourist village” projects. Their
cement skeletons are testament to the ill-planned and unregulated
development of the 1980s and 90s. Yet even as the property prices
of these unfinished or abandoned projects plummets, developers are
buying up the coastline further west.
Developers say they are reluctant to sink money into existing villages
as the costs required to “bring them back to life” are
more than what it costs to purchase virgin land and build an entire
village from scratch. In addition, the concept of an Al Sahel resort
community has vastly changed since the creation of Marakia over
two decades ago. Marina, the largest and most famous Al Sahel resort
community, covering 20 kilometers of coastline at Al Alamein, has
raised the bar. No longer will rows of faceless apartment blocks
near an unkempt beach suffice; today’s resorts, whether geared
towards Egyptian or foreign tourists, must be aesthetically inspiring
with a full array of commercial and recreational facilities.
Older resorts simply don’t have the right blueprint for upgrading,
explains Abdel Samie. “When you have a dream of building a
resort you need a wide, empty plain to implement your idea, not
something that has already been done and would restrict your vision.”
So developers are searching further afield for undeveloped swaths
of coastline. The latest buzz of activity is near Sidi Abdel Rahman,
15 kilometers west of Al Alamein, where three high-profile companies
are competing for a giant swath of sugary white beach. Orascom Hotels
& Construction (OHD), the UAE’s Emaar and Egyptian-owned
Taalat Mostafa Company have presented bids for the undeveloped plot.
If OHD wins, it is planning to develop a year-round resort community
similar to El Gouna, says Moez Bukheila, OHD’s director of
corporate investments and investor relations. “We are not
looking to build individual hotels, we’re more interested
in building a destination or town concept.”
The all-inclusive clause
Even further west, development is proceeding at full pace on the
coastline near Marsa Matrouh. A mega-tourism project developed by
Egypt’s Travco Group and partner TUI AG, Germany’s largest
travel and leisure group, is taking shape at Almaza Bay, a gorgeous
stretch of pristine white sand beach 38 kilometers east of the Mediterranean
port. The Almaza Bay project, billed as the area’s first year-round
resort destination, envisions five luxury hotels with 2,300 guestrooms
and 1,000 residential villas. The 3-million-square-meter site will
also include a waterpark, 18-hole golf course, shopping mall, marina,
horseback riding facilities, spa, cinemas and tennis academy to
lure tourists.
The 395-room Almaza Beach Resort, managed by Iberotel, is the first
of the five planned hotels and already proving a hit with European
tourists. Just three months in operation, the five-star hotel is
boasting an enviable 73-percent occupancy rate – mostly Italian
and German tourists on one-week all-inclusive holidays. Such packages,
first introduced in Hurghada in the late 1990s, have become increasingly
common on Egypt’s Red Sea coast and now look destined for
its “Mediterranean Riviera.” All meals, drinks and local
alcohol, and most activities, are covered in the package.
“These days, all-inclusive is the name of the game,”
says Hesham Saied, the hotel’s general manager. He says European
tourists are seeking stress-free holidays where they can pay one
rate then pretty much leave their wallets at home. “It’s
a very good package for families, especially when you calculate
the cost of breakfast, lunch, dinner, drinks and perhaps an ice
cream for the kids,” he says. “They can get everything
they need for no extra charge.”
Travco’s strategic partnership with Italian tour operator
Alpitour Group, which purports to control over a third of the Italian
outbound travel market, has helped put Marsa Matrouh on the map.
Almaza Bay Resort is one of three resorts in Egypt marketed under
Alpitours’ Bravo Club brand – the Italian equivalent
of Club Med. Four charter flights a week from Italian cities and
one from Germany transfer tourists to nearby Marsa Matrouh International
Airport.
Rafaat Daniel, a tour leader for Alpitours Group, sees huge potential
for the Almaza Bay project, particularly if marketed to Italian
tourists. “For d1,100, they can spend a week here all inclusive,
including alcohol and the international flight, which is cheaper
than it would cost them to spend a week in Sicily,” he says.
“And the beaches are much more beautiful here.”
But Italians might be reluctant to come during the winter months,
when daytime temperatures hover around 15C and winter storms buffet
the coast. For British and Scandanavian tourists, however, the North
Coast could, even then, still look relatively warm and pleasant.
Saied says plans are afoot to tap into these northern European markets.
So far, the resort has bookings through October, but Saied is confident
it can still pull tourists during the cooler winter months. He points
out that the resort has heated indoor and outdoor swimming pools,
and can arrange year-round desert safaris and sightseeing excursions.
It is also on the tourist path to Siwa Oasis. “We can expect
two nights’ business from tourists traveling from Cairo to
Siwa in need of a stopover, especially as all hotels in Marsa Matrouh
shut down in the winter,” he says.
One of its biggest challenges, however, is infrastructure. Tourism
has only recently gathered enough momentum to make Matrouh governorate’s
priority list. The sleepy Mediterranean coastline lacks many tourist
basics such as shopping, ATMs and public transport. For now, resort
enclaves must strive for self-sufficiency, generating their own
electricity, treating wastewater and installing costly satellite
communications networks.
Even getting tourists to the resort can be a task. Marsa Matrouh’s
small military airport, opened to commercial flights last year,
has neither the capacity nor the organization to handle any large
influx of tourists. And its military regulations – which prohibit
most airport pickup and drop-offs – are a thorn in the side
of many tour operators. Saied, however, is certain improvements
will come. “With this value of business, for sure they will
expand the airport.”
Charter flights can bring tourists from Europe, but for the region
to really take off, Saied says it will need to encourage domestic
travel. EgyptAir currently operates Cairo-Marsa Matrouh flights
three times a week, but only during the summer. In winter, there
are no flights and EgyptAir’s monopoly on domestic routes
prevents other carriers from filling the role. However, a loophole
in the regulations that allows smaller aircraft to operate as “air
taxis” on domestic routes could see a chartered fleet of twin-prop
aircraft shuttling tourists to and from Cairo and Alexandria during
the off-season. Saied is currently mulling the plan, but has yet
to approach private airline operators.
Entry points
Back in the thick of it, near Al Alamein, a privately-run international
airport has been receiving a steady stream of charter flights from
Europe since opening in March 2005. At last count, an average of
10 flights a month were using the facility, which is owned and managed
by the International Company for Airports (ICA) under a 50-year
build, operate and transfer (BOT) concession. While the airport
has a daily capacity three times its current rate, accommodation
has been a limiting factor.
“The main problem we’re facing is that the number of
hotels and resorts in the area is still limited, which is why the
number of tourist arrivals remains small,” explains ICA’s
general manager Saleh Hanna. “The number of planes that land
here is directly related to the number of hotel rooms.”
Only two hotels in the area are geared for foreigners and year-round
tourism. One is the five-star Sharm Life Al Alamein (formerly a
Mövenpick Resort & Spa), located a few kilometers away
in the upmarket Ghazala tourist village, another creation of ICA’s
parent company, KATO Group. The other is the elegant Porto Marina
Hotel, which opened last summer in Porto Marina, an extension of
Marina owned and operated by Amer Group.
The Venetian-themed tourist village replete with canals and gondolas
has received top marks for its family-oriented promenade, 250-room
five-star hotel, cinemas, shopping mall, restaurants and cafés.
A golf course, swimming pool, spa and 1,200 apartments are scheduled
to open next summer. “This summer, we can say that 50 percent
of the project is operational,” says Abdel Samie. “By
next summer the whole project will be completed.”
But the real value of the Porto Marina project is its 1,000-berth
marina, designed and operated by Britain’s Camper & Nicholson,
which Amer Group hopes will attract yachts from Gulf and the far
shores of the Mediterranean. “It’s an international
gateway to Egypt,” says Abdel Samie.
While its international port license is still pending, Porto Marina
is positioned to become the first world-class marina on the North
Coast, complementing existing private marinas on the Red Sea at
El Gouna and Port Ghalib. Planned moorages at Ain Sokhna, Almaza
Bay and San Stefano in Alexandria will make it possible for yachters
to cruise the entire length of Egypt’s coastline, and further
afield. “The more ports that open up the better for us as
we’ll be attracting more and more visitors every year,”
says Abdel Samie.
The Ministry of Tourism expects Egypt to draw 10 million tourists
by 2010. With Red Sea tourism reaching the saturation point, the
Mediterranean Coast could be the next big recreational destination.
Abdel Samie admits the work is incomplete, but says new developments
promise to transform Al Sahel from a summer playground into a year-round
destination. “There is still a lot of work to be done but
I believe that we are taking the right steps and in the coming 10
years the North Coast will be completely transformed,” he
says.
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