Dozens of hotel and tourist village owners in Marsa Alam are now facing a crisis as the coronavirus pandemic has halted foreign tourist flights and local demand is minimal due to the high cost of domestic flights.
The Marsa Alam Tourism Investors Association reported that 95 percent of the city’s hotels have closed. Currently only four out of 72 hotels and tourist villages are in operation.
Industry workers are calling on the government to support the city’s tourism sector so that investments can continue.
And investors have complained about other issues affecting the city’s tourism, such as the fees and requirements on licenses and the multitude of regulatory agencies, including the environment, electricity, and shore, that repaint umbrellas on beaches without a Coastal Protection Agency approval hinder.
They urged the state authorities to stand by the resort town’s side, grant them more facilities and exemptions from government fees, or postpone them without interest so that they can continue their work.
A board member of Marsa Alam Tourism Investors Association, Atef Abdullatif, said a number of issues plague the Marsa Alam tourism sector, including electricity bills, expensive domestic flights, and Marsa Alam hotels’ failure to receive their financial dues from tourism companies.
Abdullatif urged the government to assist the city by providing the necessary funding from banks in line with tourism initiatives while easing the requirements for hotels to complete the replacement and renovation processes to complete hotels under the coronavirus.
One of the key requests from Marsa Alam investors, presented to Minister of Tourism and Antiques Khaled al-Anany, was to lower the value of the Marsa Alam domestic flight ticket proposed by the Ministry of Aviation to LE 2,100 and return.
Revised translation by Al-Masry Al-Youm
