Return to Sharm el‑Sheikh: after four years, Egypt’s Red Sea resort is back in business

Exactly two months ago, however, Sharm’s fortunes changed. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office lifted the ban and, by the end of the day, the Egyptian-owned Red Sea Holidays had put the resort back on sale. The passengers touching down today are its clients, but what can they expect from Britain’s erstwhile winter-sun favourite?

First and foremost, it is significantly more secure than it was in 2015. A 23-mile, 20ft-high wall emblazoned, incongruously, with CND-style peace symbols isolates Sharm from the mountains and desert to the north. There are CCTV masts every 100 yards and entry to the city is only possible via heavily defended gates. A second wall surrounds the airport, its perimeter patrolled by troops, and at least a dozen vehicle checkpoints control travel within the city.

The security extends to the hotels, where x-ray machines and airport-style arches protect foyers, and sentry posts guard all other entrances — or are supposed to. I strolled into several resorts either unseen by smartphone-absorbed watchmen, or unchallenged.

Sharm is a diving hotspot

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“Government security is so good that we’re not really needed,” one hotel guard confided. He pointed at the fairy lights in the palm trees. “We’re like that — just decoration.”

“They’re not decoration,” a senior policeman insisted. “They should know that Sharm has used up its excuses. One more incident and we’ll never recover.”

For those with faith in Egyptian security, a warm welcome is guaranteed. During my stay last week, I was given cups of tea, a bunch of flowers, free taxi rides and even a stuffed camel. I was asked to pose for selfies with wet-eyed shopkeepers and rejoicing restaurateurs. My long-suffering fixer, Fadi, was pursued by locals wanting to know if there are more like me on their way. The Egyptians tell me they have a special relationship with the British — that there’s a mutual admiration for each other’s cultures and manners. That’s not a sentiment you’ll ever hear on the Costa del Sol, but it’s a love rooted in hard fiscal logic.

Recovery has been slow in Sharm. This has led hotels and tour operators to target eastern European and Central Asian markets — Armenians, Kazakhs, Poles and Ukrainians — and tourists from these nations are suckers for the all-inclusive model.

“They’re not like the British,” sighed Mohammed Amr, an underworked camel wrangler on the beach at Nabq Bay. “They eat, drink and sleep all-inclusive, and they never come out.” He sucked on his fag. “How am I supposed to make a living?”

I heard the same complaints in Naama Bay. When the Camel Bar opened in 1986, drinkers on its rooftop terrace had uninterrupted views of the sea. Since then, a neon-lit neighbourhood of clubs, restaurants, tattoo parlours and souvenir shops has grown around it — a gentler, shisha-scented Magaluf. Looking down on Sharm’s party district, it was clear that, had it not been for the Egyptian workers, the streets would have been empty. I was sitting with Awny Ezzat, the bar manager. Between us, we comprised 33% of the clientele.

“In 2015, you couldn’t get into the Camel without reservations,” he said, “and sometimes even then we could only offer standing room. Look at us now.” He shook his head. “It’s the all-inclusives. Before it all ended in 2015, the British always left their hotels at night. They came to have fun, not to save money.”

Al Mustafa mosque

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They certainly won’t be saving money in 2019. Despite sterling’s strength — £1 now buys EGP21, instead of EGP12 in 2015 — the holiday cost of living is comparable to rival winter-sun destinations such as the Canaries and Morocco. A bottle of local beer costs £3.65. Dinner for one in a Nabq Bay restaurant set me back £36. A 90-minute kitesurfing lesson costs £55, a one-day dive trip £75.

Nor are the package prices the introductory offers you’d expect. A week in February with Red Sea Holidays — currently the sole supplier of holidays to Sharm, with weekly direct flights from Gatwick and Birmingham — starts at £581pp, B&B, in the four-star Ghazala Beach hotel, rising to £1,225pp, all-inclusive, in the luxury Rixos Seagate.

Is that enough to tempt you away from Tenerife, where Jet2 last week had deals of £498pp and £1,123pp for hotels of similar quality?

Package prices will fall as the number of flights to Sharm increases. Tui is launching twice-weekly services from Gatwick and Manchester, and weekly flights from Birmingham, in mid-February, then departures from Bristol and Doncaster in May. EasyJet told me it was looking at the possibility of resuming flights and holidays, “but it is too early to say when”.

Much has changed in Sharm, but the beauty and the hospitality that brought us here before the ban are much the same. Skies are cloudless, with daily highs of 25C in December. The snorkelling, straight from the beach at the Ghazala Beach Hotel, is mesmerising. And the offshore reefs seem to have thrived throughout the wilderness years: Klaus Wersten, a German frogman, told me that diving the coral gardens of the Tower and Sodfa sites was like being back in the 1980s.

Half-empty resorts have become a regular sight in the years following the FCO’s advisory against travelling to Sharm

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“Sharm is like a strong rose that has seen no rain,” opined a poetic bus driver who refused my fare when he discovered I was British. “The outer shoots are withered, but the heart is still strong.” What he meant was that returning tourists should choose carefully: the further north you go, the more run-down the resorts become. Abandoned properties blight Nabq Bay’s seafront, and parts of the strip malls behind hotels such as the Sea Beach Resort and the Jaz Mirabel Beach could double for Syria in their dereliction.

Better to pick a spot in Naama Bay, where by day the beaches display a Benidorm-like density of cocktail-sipping humanity, and where families dance to the beats of their all-inclusive cabarets by night.

Nearby, on Soho Square, the Queen Vic pub is deserted. Wistfully, the owners have encased the old beer mats under the glass tops of their empty tables. The messages scrawled on them are echoes from happier and more prosperous times.

“We love Sharm,” wrote Ryan and family in 2014, while Mia, Steve and Tayla-Mae left hearts and kisses. Best of all, though, was Heather and Lloyd Price, from Wales. “January 2015,” they wrote. “On hols and back in love.”

Sharm el-Sheikh is praying that the rest of us are ready to fall back in love, too.

Chris Haslam travelled as a guest of the Egyptian State Tourist Office (egypt.travel) and Red Sea Holidays (020 7332 2670, redseaholidays.co.uk)

▶ Is Egypt safe?
The Foreign & Commonwealth Office reports that nearly 500,000 Britons visited Egypt in 2018, and the majority of trips were trouble-free. Much of the country is marked as green by the FCO, meaning it’s safe to visit, although its advice should be heeded. This includes the warning that terrorists are very likely to carry out attacks in Egypt, and that religious sites and festivals are particularly vulnerable. There remains a heightened risk of terrorism against aviation, it says.

The FCO’s four-year advisory against travel was to Sharm el-Sheikh airport alone, not the wider resort. Now that has been lifted, tourists may fly direct to Sharm without compromising their travel insurance. That said, the resort and its airport are a tiny speck of green on an FCO map of the Sinai Peninsula that is otherwise orange — which means don’t go unless you have to — or red, which means just don’t go.

Inside Sharm el-Sheikh’s perimeter wall, security, while heavily armed and highly visible, is unlikely to hinder foreign tourists. The Egyptians say that it’s a different matter for the locals. “You need ID and a satisfactory explanation as to why you are visiting the city,” a driver told me. “It is hard.”

If taking part in adventurous activities such as diving, camel-riding or quad-biking, you should check that your travel insurance offers adequate cover; and when snorkelling, be aware that few of the hotel beaches have lifeguards.