| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 17/07/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 47 |
| Copyright: Other |
Winter holidays by Matt Bond
There’s more fun in the winter sun
Value for money tempts customers to Red Sea region
British tourists escaping the winter blues could soon be choosing Egypt’s Red Sea region instead of more established winter sun destinations.JMC Holidays introduced the region this year to its winter sun programme and is forecasting that it could overtake the Canaries in popularity by the end of the decade.
Product director Alan MacLean said: “With its year- round tropical temperature, excellent diving facilities and competitive prices it is attracting more and more people.”
The operator offers a choice of 10 hotels and apartments, on a bed-and-breakfast or all-inclusive basis. Seven nights’ bed and breakfast at the Hotel Sanfir, Sharm El Sheikh, leads in at £269 per person departing from Gatwick between January 12-18 next year.
Prices for pre-bookable diving courses start at £155 for a Professional Association of Diving Instructors’ open water beginner’s course and at least three dives, or £145 for a 10-dive package for qualified divers. A range of four and five-day pre-bookable diving packages are available, alongside five new excursions including a trip to St Catherine’s Monastery and a sunset camel safari. A Padi five-day open-water course costs £199 per person and a five-day diving tour to the straits of Tiran and Ras Mohammed National Park costs from £160 per person.
Cosmos product manager Ian Hailes agreed that Egypt is becoming increasingly popular, although he said it could be some time before it overtakes the Canaries in volume terms.
The operator added two properties in Sharm El Sheikh to its summer 2001 brochure launched in May, a budget hotel for divers, the Tropicana, and the three-diamond rated Novotel Coralia Sharm. The lead-in price for seven nights at the Tropicana is £364 bed and breakfast between December 14-20.
The destination’s popularity has prompted Greece and Cyprus specialist Olympic Holidays to launch its first Egypt programme, which will operate year-round from November.
Commercial director Photis Lambrianides said: “We are already a leading force to Greece and Cyprus, but we believe the Red Sea will see great developments in the future. However, we are planning a gradual introduction rather than a full-scale launch.”
The new destinations will be sold under the banner of Odyssey Holidays, and the company is targeting 8,000-10,000 passengers in the first year of operation.
Flights leave weekly from Gatwick to Sharm El Sheikh with JMC Airlines.
The brochure concentrates on upmarket holidays, but there are a number of budget hotels – including the three-star Tropicana Inn – as well as the five-star Hyatt Regency and Iberotel Grand Sharm.
Abercrombie and Kent will be featuring a cruise with a difference around the Red Sea on the luxury motor yacht Callisto in its new brochure released in September. Aimed specifically at the upper end of the market, head of planning Stuart Douglass-Lee said it represented a considerably different product for the operator.
The four-night cruise out of Hurghada will take in Aqaba in Jordan for Petra, Eilat, Sharm El Sheikh and St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Peninsula.
It is part of a package that also includes two nights in Cairo and four nights cruising between Luxor and Aswan. Prices were not available at the time of going to press.
Expansion is on the cards for Tradewinds, which plans to expand its Egypt offer in the second edition of its Worldwide 2001 brochure, adding more hotels and increasing its range of Nile cruises.
Contracts manager Matthew Shaw said: “Egypt is selling strongly, both for hotel-based holidays and cruises. We’re now back up to the level of business we were enjoying before 1997.”
How low can you go: excellent diving facilities entice visitors
Get the hump: JMC offers the option of a sunset camel safari through the desert