With travel warnings in place from almost any country on the globe, a typical day in Egypt’s famous Sharm el-Sheikh beach resort includes seeing several hundred protesters chanting with Egyptian flags.
About 100 feet away, on the shore of the Red Sea, foreign tourists nonchalantly ate dinner outside their hotel.
Werner Gesser and known eTurboNews reader tells eTN: “Sharm is not ok.
โThe city is not (so) clean anymore. Nobody cares, no control anymore about who is allowed to enter Sharm.
โYou can find bad behavior anywhere around.
โFive-star resorts are selling luxury rooms for $25.00 per person all meals included.
โIt’s a disaster. I have a feeling it will stay like this for a long time/and am sure we will stay like that for long time.”
Tourists are safe, but how to relate this to the world?
In Cairo a Gizaโs Great Pyramids, souvenir vendors wait restlessly in the shade, watching for the handful of tourists who still make their way down the empty street to the once-bustling landmark.
The tour buses that lined the streets around the pyramids have disappeared.
โTo bring tourism back, we need stability and security,โ local tourist professionals say. โThe parties must calm down.โ
A guide complained: โThere have been no tourists coming from outside. From June 30 until now, there have been none.โ
Two travelers, laden by backpacks, made their way past the gate to the pyramids. They were followed by a crowd of jostling vendors offering souvenirs and horse rides.
One of the US tourist visiting Cairo said: “As long as you travel safe and are smart about the kind of decisions that you are making, a lot of times the people are a lot nicer than the media makes them out to be.โ
But in general tourists disappeared from the Khan El-Khalili bazaar in Cairo. This warren of narrow streets used to see coachloads of people coming to haggle over souvenirs, soak up the atmosphere and relax in cafes over a mint tea and a sheesha (water pipe).
After dark, the area is crowded with Egyptians talking a stroll.
Frustrated stakeholders demand the Egyptian tourism ministry needed to do more to promote Egypt abroad.