Luxor and Aswan hotels are crawling back to a recover

Occupancy rates at floating hotels in Luxor and Aswan are up to 60% on the back of a government campaign to encourage domestic winter tourism, the local press reports, citing an unnamed Tourism Ministry source. The campaign, which kicked off on 15 January and will end on 28 February, gives travelers lower airfare from national flag carrier EgyptAir, as well as marked down hotel rates.

Any increase is good, but let’s keep this in perspective: Hotels across the country are still only allowed to operate at 50% capacity, so occupancy rates are now calculated out of that capacity limit. By our math, that means hotels in Luxor and Aswan are about 30% full. That’s around the same as the average hotel occupancy rate in Egypt’s biggest tourist destinations last year, according to Colliers International figures.