SAMIH SAWIRIS Chairman of Orascom Hotels & Development

P.M. Communications: El Gouna is a very unique town entirely built by one company, Orascom Hotels & Development, and it became a role model for other developers in Egypt and abroad. How do you feel as the creator of this new concept?

Mr. Sawiris: I hope that our competitors will imitate what has been done in El Gouna, because this is model that is good for Egypt. We have repeatedly been invited to recreate communities like El Gouna in many other countries because of the obvious success of our resort. It is exactly what every country wishes to see happening within their borders. They want to see a developer buying a piece of land in the desert, paying taxes, employing 6,000 people, educating their children, and making benefits for everybody. As the final result, there will be a new bustling town on the map and the government would not have invested a penny in it. Imagine if there were 1,000 El Gounas developed! That would be another 6 million job opportunities and all it takes are a thousand entrepreneurs who are capable of making it a reality.

P.M. Communications: You have set the standards very high and you still have a lot of land to develop in El Gouna. What are your ambitions for the future this resort?

Mr. Sawiris: As far as El Gouna is concerned, my main ambition is to continually improve and upgrade the area so that it can mature to become one of the top tourism destinations worldwide. The necessary elements are present, such as the size, the critical mass and the harmony of the area, but there are a lot of little things that can make the difference and turn it into one of the best destinations. That is what we are working on currently.

For instance, we have hotels that are nice and good, but we do not have a top world class luxury hotel. Right now we are working on this issue by creating three boutique hotels, each one with a different flavour. These exclusive hotels will transform El Gouna from "just another destination" into "THE destination" in Egypt. That is our main target because it just does not make sense that we are the cutest town in the country, but we do not have the cutest hotel in the country. For this reason, we are only focusing on adding upscale hotels.

We are also planning to build an additional golf course and we are in the process of extending the marina to accommodate bigger boats. Surprisingly, we have had much more demand for large boats than small boats. The challenge to continually improve our product offer is what inspires me today.

There is still much land available for further development in El Gouna, and we are adding things because this is the natural development of any town to grow, keeping in mind that positive growth has a strategy. In order to expand, we want to let El Gouna thrive as a peacefully growing town into a more prosperous destination. We do not want it to become a second Mallorca, or turn into one of those places that have started small, then became amazingly popular, and before you know what is happening, greed hits and the place starts to dwindle into the domains of the typical 'has been' kind of place.

P.M. Communications: The British are the largest buyers of second properties worldwide. Could you explain to our readers what is especially enticing about El Gouna and the properties that you offer?

Mr. Sawiris: Investors often look at El Gouna because they know where it was 15 years ago and where it is today. They see that the trend has been consistent, so for an English man, buying a property in El Gouna is an obvious choice. I do not think there is any risk in involved, because Egypt is still far behind in terms of pricing and investors can easily sell and get the benefits from investing in El Gouna. That is why El Gouna has been on the top of the English investors agenda.

What differentiates us, and is unfortunately not obvious to everyone except the sophisticated and experienced buyers, is that El Gouna is the only place that is totally protected from bad neighbours. We do not even have neighbours because El Gouna is one big town that belongs to the same company. Therefore, there is no threat of having bad neighbours coming and creating slums or cheap housing projects that might disturb the value of real estate. This is really the distinguishing aspect between El Gouna as it stands today, and any other place. The only place in the country where you really know what will happen later is El Gouna.

P.M. Communications: How did you capitalize on the experience from El Gouna in developing other projects, such as Taba Heights?

Mr. Sawiris: Taba Heights is the second destination we developed and it is actually a more beautiful development than El Gouna, not only because of its stunning location on Sinai, but also because it was strategically planned from the onset and we learned from our mistakes in El Gouna and used this insight when creating Taba. We also had much more courage to embark on a more lavish destination for Taba Heights than we did with El Gouna. Unfortunately for the foreigners, the issue of buying homes there is still not sorted out, so we cannot really embark on the real estate aspects, but there are ample positive points in Taba that balance this point.

For tourists the hotels are amazing, as well as the golf courses. The place as a whole is wonderful. The excursion potential is unbelievable, offering the opportunity to go to three countries, Israel, Jordan or Saudi Arabia, during the course of the week for day trips, or visit the Saint Catharine Mountain. Then just across the bay, we have Tala Bay in Jordan, we call it the "Gulf of Aqaba Street", which has been created following the same model.

Another development further down south in the Sultanate of Oman is the pearl of the Indian Ocean. This is by far the most serene place I have ever seen in my life. I have never fallen in love with a place as much as Oman. The people there are so peaceful, correct and there is a real local culture and tradition that makes you benefit from being there as a visitor, much more than when you go to places like Dubai where you have to really put a serious effort until you find the local culture. In Dubai there are 2 million people and only 50,000 are local, so your chances of finding a local are about 5%. It is quite a tough job in Dubai to find a traditional local culture, but this is not the case in beautiful Oman.

P.M. Communications: How do you choose the locations for your developments?

Mr. Sawiris: There are some practical reasons, some technical and the rest is based on gut feelings. The practical reasons are making sure that there is an airport in the area, so our clients do not have to suffer to get there. Then the development property has to be super expansive. For example, we are doing a development in Yemen where we choose to have a complete island for safety and security reasons. When we go to that island, we are on our own. It is a big island of about 170 million square meters, so we will be building our own airport.

Generally speaking, if the project is a bit smaller, the feasibility of building an airport is far more difficult. For instance, we went to Morocco to look for a piece of land and we liked the land that was near an airport that needs upgrading, but at least there was an airport and the upgrade costs are not as dramatic as building one from the ground up, so we could put it in our calculations.

P.M. Communications: Do you personally go to look at the land and choose the destinations?

Mr. Sawiris: Yes, I enjoy that part of the job and I do not delegate it. I actually never delegate the fun parts of my job! I like going again and again to these sites and seeing them mature, it gives me satisfaction.

P.M. Communications: What do you think is the best way for a sustainable development of the tourism industry in Egypt?

Mr. Sawiris: I believe there is still a lot to be done to streamline this industry back to its natural deserved growth of 10% a year. Egypt is still catching up and the potential is ridiculously high. Therefore a natural growth of this industry should be in the vicinity of 10 to 15%.

There is no reason why a country that has this location, this weather, this history, these beaches, these deserts and a thousand other things should be underselling itself in terms of pricing and not growing annually as fast as it should be. All the obstacles that we face are man made.

P.M. Communications: Terrorism attacks have affected the tourism industry worldwide. What would you say to the British travellers who are still having second thoughts about coming to Egypt?

Mr. Sawiris: I do not think that there is anyone who will not come to Egypt because of terrorism. I think its much more a question of what they will get when they come here. This is what I have been trying to explain to the people. The impact of terrorism on people's pattern of travelling has dwindled, as it has become a phenomenon that affects the entire world. If you stay in London, you could have bombs in the underground or the busses. If you go to Madrid, there might be bombs in the trains. If you go to the US, it could happen in the skyscrapers. If you come to Egypt it could happen in one of the hotels. At the end of the day, it is a problem that we all have to live with.

We have 8 million tourists come to Egypt this year. People are starting to realize from a statistical point of view that probably twice as many tourists die from car accidents in any country of the world, than the number of people who die from terrorist attacks. In Egypt, this number is even smaller because the impact of incidents on the arrivals has dwindled incredibly. In the past, one incident would wipe out the whole season, whereas today it takes 4 incidents in one year to reduce your arrivals by 10%. Therefore, I believe that terrorism is not an issue anymore.

P.M. Communications: Would you like to send a final message to the British travellers?

Mr. Sawiris: It is the right time for the British travellers to discover or rediscover Egypt, because Egypt is now a much more mature destination. Our guests can experience beautiful hotels and beaches, they can also be adventurous and go around and discover places by themselves, they can visit the most amazing monuments in the world, and at the same time enjoy our food in excellent restaurants, bars and let's not forget to mention the night life…

P.M. Communications: Thank you very much for your time and your comments.