When an escape is an escape
Once it was hard to book a hotel room in March or April, Egypt's peak tourist season. Now it's tourists who are scarce. Jenny Jobbins has been enjoying the empty streets of Luxor and Hurghada
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In Hurghada, it's good to be "pointing your camera at a personless view"; idle Nile boats at Luxor
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"Here we like tourists, even Americans," says Mohamed Abdel-Rahim with a wry smile as he and fellow guide Ahmed Hussein sit waiting for clients beside the Karnak Temple ticket office. It is a sunny morning in the high season, but this is more like Luxor in high summer. The bus and taxi drivers in the near-empty car park outnumber the visitors 20 to one. That's a quick estimate -- I can see only two tourists. Are there any more inside? I ask. "Some English, Spanish, German, French and Russian. Just a few," Abdel-Rahim replies.
"Anyone who hasn't been here before is scared to come to Egypt," says Hussein. "But lots come year after year and some of them have written to tell us they're still coming this year. We're doing everything as usual, like the Sound and Light show, so the people who come can get what they paid for. We'd welcome Americans, but unfortunately they don't read maps. They don't know how far we are from Iraq. Because, you see, we have to look out for our jobs, " he adds.
There is little other employment in Luxor -- most families depend directly or indirectly on the tourist industry. Factories and other polluting industries are banned, and the famous sugar cane factory is 20kms outside town.
Scares over wars, hijackings, terrorist attacks and now SARS have brought the travel and tourist industry to its knees. But those of us stouthearted enough to keep going can reap huge benefits -- price reductions, queue-less entry to monuments, a choice of accommodation and extra spoiling from hotel staff.
But if a resort is empty when you arrive it doesn't guarantee you're going to have the place to yourself for your entire stay. "There's plenty of space so there's no need to book ahead. Agencies will see how the wind blows and book at the last moment," said one hotel manager who could not be named due to company policy.
On the river cruise boats wait idly by, stacked three or four abreast. Estimates of the number of Nile boats vary, but they number between 300 and 400. Normally at this time of year most would be plying their way to and from Aswan. Are there too many boats? I ask the man in charge of the Prince Omar, whose last clients left on 21 March. He said there were not. Total boat occupancy in April was usually 85 to 90 per cent, but it was now down to 25 per cent.
Recent group cancellations have been across the international board. The Hilton has American guests, but I don't actually see them and I hear of no others. The British abound -- they are Luxor's life blood. At times such as these hotels rely in what are known in the trade as "repeaters" -- guests who come once, twice or even three times a year, like the elderly couple I met who have taken a cruise to Aswan and back and spent a second week in the Sheraton every year for the last 13 years. Like other repeaters I talked to, they had no qualms at all about coming to Egypt.
Some newcomers admit they were less certain. Fresh off the plane were Cardiff University students Hala Jundi and Claire Raisin, here because Jundi had won a holiday with Kuoni. "Reading the newspapers and talking to Kuoni totally reassured us," Jundi said.
The Sheraton offers China tea and scones on the terrace at 4.30pm, but today there are no takers. Ever in hope, the waiters smooth the blue-checked tablecloths. As the sun begins to go down a few guests come out to sip coffee or a beer. "It doesn't get much better than this," one guest murmurs. The weather is perfect: warm, but not scorching. All is peaceful, just as though it is mid- summer. One has to pinch oneself to remember this is high season.
However hard companies are trying to dispel visitors' fears, though, some local operators are not making it easier for themselves. When I arrived at Luxor Airport shortly before 9pm there were no hotel courtesy buses for visitors without reservations, and taxi drivers had enhanced their rip-off tricks. When one finally arrives at a hotel reception desk it becomes clear there is a price war going on. This accounts for hotels with three stars or less being almost empty. Why take a double room in the three-star St Joseph's for $40 when you can laze in a beautiful garden beside the Nile in the luxurious five-star St George's across the road for $60? (These prices are LE120 and LE180 for Egyptians respectively).
Most five-star hotels can afford to cut their prices drastically, with rates for a standard double room, bed and breakfast, ranging from $60 to $90 (LE180 to LE270 for Egyptians). "Hotels are under-cutting each other to keep their food and beverage sections going," one managerial assistant said. As a result, her hotel has now one of the highest occupancy rates in Luxor at 50 per cent, against a norm at this time of year of 70 per cent. "But this doesn't just represent a drop of 20 per cent. The prices we are offering are so low that the loss is much greater," she says.
Unfortunately price-cutting may mean cutting staff, something Egyptian owners appear more loath to do than international chains. In all hotels the first step is to give staff annual vacations, thus delaying layoffs. Staff at some hotels and resorts have agreed to a 10 per cent salary cut, an amount they know might increase.
But not all hotels are cutting rates, preferring to keep prices up and offer a high individual service rather than cut corners by catering to the masses. The Winter Palace's name alone ranks it as one of Luxor's most exclusive hotels: some of the guests who stay there can perhaps afford whatever it takes. Nevertheless, its occupancy is down by 50 per cent to 22 per cent. Khaled Ahmed, front office manager of the Mövenpick, which is still officially charging $180 (LE300 for Egyptians) for a standard double room, points out: "Prices will drop anyway from 1 May when the season changes and the rate goes down a bit. We shall have to wait until October, but we hope by then we'll be back to normal."
"The type of tourist is changing," says the Windsor Hotel's General Manager Mahmoud Moris Salama. These changes have a particular effect on three-star hotels like the Windsor, which has customarily welcomed sightseers. "Occupancy will never be 100 per cent like it was before the 1991 Gulf War. Most people then were looking for history, but now the majority are looking for destinations where they can find fun and sun like Hurghada or Sharm El-Sheikh."
Luxor's five-star hotels have been able to cash in on this trend, providing a beautiful pool, lush gardens and gorgeous riverside views where guests can come for a week or two and barely be tempted outside the hotel. Such hotels rely on repeaters more than others do. "I had a couple the other day who have been here 30 times," said Samir Azer, St George's general manager.
"Here [at the Mövenpick] we have a huge number of loyal guests who support us through these hard times," echoes Ahmed. "They expect the same quality of food and services, and we haven't reduced any of these."
The 1,000 guests who return to the Mövenpick two or three times a year know they can expect the same service and safety standards, but first-time visitors like Maureen Armfield, out here on a Thompson's holiday, is equally impressed and feels completely at ease. "I'm going to go home and tell everyone it's perfectly safe," she says. "And I'm definitely coming back next year. I feel sorry for the local people, they're suffering more than most."
I take an afternoon bus to Hurghada. When we stop at Port Safaga a number of men in fellahin dress and carrying cartons bound with string disembark for the boat which will carry them back to Saudi Arabia and on to Kuwait. Their holiday is over; for them it's back to the places no tourists at present are able to reach. One is suddenly conscience of what it really means to feel safe. Hurghada, I have been told, is doing fairly well as far as tourist numbers go, but I find no evidence of this. It is the same story as in Luxor: the lower-end hotels have lost their guests to the luxury hotels, which offer better value. And in each category it is, not surprisingly, the cleanest and kindliest hotels that have the most guests.
A sea breeze ensures that Hurghada is a summer as well as a winter resort. It enjoys neither the same seasons, the same ambiance nor the same clientele as the Nile Valley or Sinai. It lies, just as it does geographically, somewhere in between, with most of its permanent population coming from Luxor, a seasonal influx of Cairenes and year-round guests from abroad. About 64 per cent of these visitors come to dive, and, divers being known as an intrepid lot, I had expected that a distant war would not deter them. Ruud Cordewener of the Empire Beach Resort's Easy Divers Diving Centre says there have not been that many cancellations by divers. Yet hotel and resort occupancy rates are low, averaging 30 per cent as opposed to a 70 to 80 per cent norm for this time of year. Reports from Egypt's diving capital Sharm El- Sheikh are similar, with occupancy below 40 per cent and a reduction of 50 per cent in charter flights -- guests are still coming, mainly from Germany, the United Kingdom and Russia, but they are fewer.
The Empire Hurghada's Rooms Division Manager El-Sayed Mahmoud says some hotels are thinking of closing, a step he considers fatal. "It takes 10 years to build a reputation, and you have to maintain it." He is one of the few operators who admit that there are too many hotels, cruise and dive boats in Egypt and that the market has been overstretched. "Tourism is war," he says.
The Empire is only a short walk from downtown Hurghada which, Mahmoud says, can be a bad thing at times like this. More distant resorts have an advantage over centrally-situated hotels: there is no popping out for a bottle of water from a supermarket. But walking round an empty town has its hazards, since their scarcity value makes foreigners fair prey. Some shopkeepers are so desperate for trade they take sales pressure to new heights -- I'm sorry to say that one lured me into his shop to show me a family photograph and then barred my exit. Only a chance call to my mobile phone prevented an incident: I pretended I couldn't hear and forcibly opened the door, escaping into the street. Most shopkeepers are more polite. Perched on chairs outside their shops, they greet passers-by with a chorus of "hellos" like a row of lonely parrots.
It is no wonder they are worried: their livelihood is at stake. Modern Hurghada is a large town, but it depends almost entirely on services and tourism. "We have to keep on going for the sake of the staff," says the Giftun Resort's Reservations Manager Abdel-Nasser Ali Hefni, indicating the gardeners busily tending the Giftun's beautiful grounds.
Along the road the Marriott's grand foyer is completely empty, like a palace on show to the public before opening hours. The Marriott, which has everything -- including luxurious double rooms with breakfast for $75 (LE300 for Egyptians, with half board) -- has only 18 per cent occupancy, with most of the guests coming from Russia. Russians account for about half of Hurghada's foreign tourists, and one downtown waiter told me he was learning Russian from a book, "so as not to mix up fish and chicken". I was the only client for dinner in his restaurant, so one assumes his Russian will be flawless by the time tourism looks up.
Sorry as I feel for the people whose income depends on travellers I love walking these empty streets and easily finding a quiet table for a cup of coffee. I love going to the pool without making a "German rush" for a sun bed. I love being able to point my camera at a person- free view. An escape should be an escape, from hordes of tourists as well as the crowds back home.
