Egypt's Dying Tourism Trade
Three months before I met him, Sobhi Osman quit his job at a clothing factory, said goodbye to his family and friends in Ismailia and boarded a bus to Sharm el-Sheikh.
His hometown friends who had earlier made the move to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt’s premier destination for sun-and-surf tourism, were imploring him to come. They insisted that tourism at the Red Sea resort town was strong again as the political turmoil that for years had kept foreigners away from Egypt began to subside.
Though he didn’t even have a job yet, Osman spent most of the six hour bus ride from Ismailia thinking about what he would do with the windfall he hoped to earn from working at one of the nearly two hundred hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Soon after arriving in the glitzy seaside town full of Russian, British and other European tourists, Osman landed a job at the “Sharming Inn” hotel. He made making a third more money than he did at his last job, where he sewed logos such as Nike, Puma, and Adidas on counterfeit brand-name shirts at a clothing store in Ismailia. Since the hotel provided him with free food and board in Sharm el-Sheikh, he could send most of the money home and begin saving for marriage.
He was making progress towards the same dream of financial stability and independence that pulls many young Egyptians from their homes and into a sector that at its height employed xx million Egyptians.
Then a Russian passenger plane leaving Sharm el-Sheikh was brought down by a bomb believed to have been planted by the local branch of Islamic State, killing over two hundred tourists on board and prompting a panic among foreigners in Sharm el-Sheikh, which until then had been considered one of the safest areas in Egypt.
Even after some countries stopped flights to Sharm and began airlifting their citizens home in response to fears that Islamic extremists had penetrated the garrisoned resort town, Sobhi remained optimistic.
“I hear about tourists leaving Sharm, but thankfully we’ve still had work since then,” he said outside of his hotel-provided apartment building nine days after the crash.
“Some will leave and some will stay, and eventually most will come back. Tourists returned after the (2011) revolution, they’ll come back again.”
Two days later, he called me from Sharm el-Sheikh’s bus station, where he was about to begin a decidedly less hopeful trip than the journey he undertook three months ago.
The Sharming Inn had told him that there was no more work for the month now that most of its guests had checked out and cancelled future bookings.
“They said they would call us next month if they needed us,” he said, though the dejection palpable over the line suggested this wasn’t likely.
So, again, he packed some of the bags he’d brought three months ago and boarded a bus, this time going back to Ismailia as an early casualty of a tourism crisis that is likely toget much worse before it gets better.
Here a mountain is seen across the Red Sea from a luxury hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Men wait for a bus near a billboard in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
A plane takes off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on November 7, 2015. The resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
A motor pumps groundwater from a well behind a hotel in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on November 7, 2015. The resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
At the airport, a taxi driver says no one is arriving to the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, which is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
The empty boardwalk of Neema Bay, usually a top tourist attraction in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on November 8, 2015. The resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
Truck drivers from al-Saeed, or Upper Egypt, who live in Hay al-Noor, a mostly working-class district of Sharm el-Sheikh that is home to many Egyptians who have migrated from other parts of the country in search of opportunities in the tourism industry. One of the drivers had served with an international peacekeeping force in Kadugli, Sudan, and was worried that a persistent anti-government insurgency would hurt Egypt's economy like it did Sudan's. The resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
A view of improvised housing and tour buses under the sahdow of the Heavenly Cathedral in Hay al-Noor, a mostly working-class district of Sharm el-Sheikh that is home to many Egyptians who have traveled from other parts of the country in search of opportunities in the tourism industry. The resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
Construction workers who said they had been told they may have to stop construction on a building for housing hotel workers in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on November 9, 2015. The resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
Drivers wait for work outside the hotel-provided housing near Hay al-Noor, a mostly working-class district of Sharm el-Sheikh that is home to many Egyptians who have traveled from other parts of the country in search of opportunities in the tourism industry.The resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
A vendor tastes his food in Hay al-Noor, a mostly working-class district of Sharm el-Sheikh that is home to many Egyptians who have traveled from other parts of the country in search of opportunities in the tourism industry.The resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt is bracing for a major hit to its key tourism sector as speculation grows that a bomb was the reason a Russian airliner crashed, killing all 224 people on board, after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport on October 31, 2015.
Egypt's Dying Tourism Trade
Three months before I met him, Sobhi Osman quit his job at a clothing factory, said goodbye to his family and friends in Ismailia and boarded a bus to Sharm el-Sheikh.
His hometown friends who had earlier made the move to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt’s premier destination for sun-and-surf tourism, were imploring him to come. They insisted that tourism at the Red Sea resort town was strong again as the political turmoil that for years had kept foreigners away from Egypt began to subside.
Though he didn’t even have a job yet, Osman spent most of the six hour bus ride from Ismailia thinking about what he would do with the windfall he hoped to earn from working at one of the nearly two hundred hotels in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Soon after arriving in the glitzy seaside town full of Russian, British and other European tourists, Osman landed a job at the “Sharming Inn” hotel. He made making a third more money than he did at his last job, where he sewed logos such as Nike, Puma, and Adidas on counterfeit brand-name shirts at a clothing store in Ismailia. Since the hotel provided him with free food and board in Sharm el-Sheikh, he could send most of the money home and begin saving for marriage.
He was making progress towards the same dream of financial stability and independence that pulls many young Egyptians from their homes and into a sector that at its height employed xx million Egyptians.
Then a Russian passenger plane leaving Sharm el-Sheikh was brought down by a bomb believed to have been planted by the local branch of Islamic State, killing over two hundred tourists on board and prompting a panic among foreigners in Sharm el-Sheikh, which until then had been considered one of the safest areas in Egypt.
Even after some countries stopped flights to Sharm and began airlifting their citizens home in response to fears that Islamic extremists had penetrated the garrisoned resort town, Sobhi remained optimistic.
“I hear about tourists leaving Sharm, but thankfully we’ve still had work since then,” he said outside of his hotel-provided apartment building nine days after the crash.
“Some will leave and some will stay, and eventually most will come back. Tourists returned after the (2011) revolution, they’ll come back again.”
Two days later, he called me from Sharm el-Sheikh’s bus station, where he was about to begin a decidedly less hopeful trip than the journey he undertook three months ago.
The Sharming Inn had told him that there was no more work for the month now that most of its guests had checked out and cancelled future bookings.
“They said they would call us next month if they needed us,” he said, though the dejection palpable over the line suggested this wasn’t likely.
So, again, he packed some of the bags he’d brought three months ago and boarded a bus, this time going back to Ismailia as an early casualty of a tourism crisis that is likely toget much worse before it gets better.