Plan announced to build six new hotels in Egypt

Alamy/Paul Briden

• Will cost $215m
• Two on north coast, four on Red Sea
• Government cheap loan scheme tapped

Plans to open six new hotels in Egypt in 2025 at a cost of $215 million have been revealed by the CEO of an Egyptian hotel company.

Alaa Akel, chief executive of Jaz Hotel Group, a subsidiary of the Egyptian travel and tourism company Travco, said the group will open two new hotels on Egypt’s north coast, and two each in the southern Red Sea resorts of Hurghada and Marsa Alam.

He told Al Mal newspaper that Jaz Hotel was making use of the government’s subsidised loan programme, introduced at the end of last month to encourage companies to develop hotels across the country.

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The programme, which the government has said is worth EGP50 billion ($1.03 billion), allows developers to borrow money at the reduced rate of 12 percent, less than half that of the Egyptian central bank’s current lending rate of 28.25 percent.

Egypt is hoping to increase visitor numbers from last year’s record of 15 million to 25 million by 2030. It is targeting construction of 240,000 to 250,000 new hotel rooms, which would more than double the country’s room stock. Total hotel rooms in Egypt currently stand at around 225,000.

On Saturday Egypt’s housing minister said that the country was courting developers for the southern Red Sea peninsula of Ras Banas.

He suggested that any deal could resemble the one announced earlier this year where the UAE’s ADQ acquired the rights to develop Ras El Hekma on Egypt’s north coast at a cost of $35 billion, with the government retaining 35% of the project.