Welcome to the first issue of Destination Sahel 2026

Good morning friends, and welcome to EnterpriseAM’s Destination Sahel 2026, our four-part series exploring Egypt’s seasonal lifestyle hotspot where things are slowly ramping up for peak summer. The construction crews and landscapers working round the clock for the last minute finish on this year’s new shops, clubs and restaurants are finally gone and everything is open for business. If you’re like us you’re savoring the relatively empty beaches and mild, dry weather of late-June, early-July Sahel. It won’t be this way for long.

Football and real estate are dominating conversations. Last weekend Sahel gave a hero’s welcome to Egypt’s national football team who came home from the World Cup via Alamein International Airport. Thousands of fans cheered and planes flew giant Egyptian flags across the sky as the Pharaohs traveled via double decker bus to the G Hotel in Seashell. Once the excitement subsided, conversations turned back to our national pastime: who is buying and selling what, where, and at which price.

Last year, the arrival of a USD 35 bn investment in Ras El Hekma from the UAE’s Modon put a shiny new veneer on the area. Suddenly every developer within a 15-km radius of the Modon project was rebranding their development as ‘Ras El Hekma’ instead of just Sahel in the hope of capitalizing on the massive buzz that the project continues to create.

This year Qatari Diar’s Alam Al Roum joins the conversation. Located approximately 50 kms east of Ras El Hekma and 20 minutes from Marsa Matrouh airport, Alam Al Roum is a USD 29.7 bn investment that is still in its very early stages of development with sales expected to begin this summer.

In this issue we will take a look at the state of play with both of the GCC sovereign wealth fund-backed mega-projects as well as TMG’s SouthMed. We will also look into a new kind of travel company that is making Sahel more accessible to GCC nationals, last mile delivery on the Coast, new real estate launches and more.

Sahel hotels head for full occupancy this summer

Sahel is on track for one of its busiest summer seasons on record. Mohamed Fathy, a board member of the Chamber of Tourism Establishments, says this summer is shaping up to be the busiest in years, with UAE visitors already arriving in large numbers and Saudi tourist arrivals expected to pick up next week following the delayed end of the school exam season. Most hotels are already fully booked, he says.

Hotel occupancy across Sahel and Red Sea destinations is already running at around 85%, says Magdy Sadek, a board member of the Chamber of Tourism Companies, who expects North Coast hotels to reach 100% occupancy during August. Europeans, led by Italian tourists, currently account for the bulk of hotel occupancy across the country, according to a source at the Chamber of Hotel Establishments. The focus is expected to shift to Sahel next week as Gulf arrivals begin to accelerate ahead of the peak summer travel season.

Around 5k hotel rooms have recently been added across Sahel to accommodate the growing demand, Sadek adds. Hotels continue to command the highest prices despite the additional room supply, with nightly rates at some high-end North Coast resorts exceeding USD 1k per night.

Retail rents are rising, but competition is limiting price hikes: Seasonal retail rents across Sahel have increased by around 10-15% this year as operating costs climbed, while Marassi has raised its revenue share on leased retail outlets from 10% to 15%, according to Fathy. Even so, strong competition among destinations is expected to keep consumer price increases to around 10%.