Feeling less welcome in London, Paris or New York, growing numbers of Saudis and other Gulf Arabs prefer the warm reception and relaxed atmosphere of Cairo for their summer holiday. “Everything has changed since September 11, 2001, this is the high season,” says Jean-Pierre Mainardi, manager of the Egyptian capital’s Nile Hilton hotel that provides a temporary home to many Gulf visitors.
I wonder why that could be? Why on Earth would they feel any less than welcome?
Hotels, furnished apartments, shopping malls, cabarets, everywhere moves “on Arab time,” as Cairenes call it, whether they’re making money from, or being annoyed by, the influx. Almost two million Arabs choose to come here every year, including an unprecedented 400,000 Saudis last year.
Nowadays there is little desire to spend holidays in Europe or the US because of the lengthy and invasive visa applications, strict immigration checks and the general feeling many Arabs have of being a suspect after the attacks on the US World Trade Centre and bombings in Europe.
Hm. I wonder why that could be? Why do we suspect them? I'm baffled, myself.
A family will take six to ten rooms, including one for the maid, for an average of three weeks. For the hotel, this means a summertime occupation rate of over 90 per cent. Others prefer to rent furnished apartments in the upmarket districts of Mohandiseen or Dokki.
Six to ten rooms? Jeez, that's a lot. But do they provide special, low-quality rooms for the maid? How do you know if the maid is miserable or not?
“Sixty per cent of our clientele comes from the Gulf,” says Maged Abdel Azim, who runs a flat rental agency that charges up to $200 a day for three-bedroom apartments. Some owners however refuse to rent out their properties. These wealthy visitors, who fascinate and exasperate in equal measure, also spend a lot of time in the shopping malls, where the women are easily noticed by their full-length black niqab. |