Hotels in Egypt

With such a long and established tourist industry it is not surprising that Egypt offers an enormous variety of hotels across the price spectrum.

All the main international names are featured, with several five star facilities, and several hundred others gradually grading down to zero. There is a choice for every budget, although a brief tour of local trip-advisories will reveal that even the five start hotels with international reputations suffer occasional lapses in standards, perhaps thanks to the staggering volumes that the industry annually copes with.

Cairo alone has some 160 listed hotels, and expect to pay around US$40 for a single night in a midrange hotel, and anything up to US$300 for a high end, big name hotel. Anything under US$40 dollars is slipping under the radar at which point things can turn out to be a bit hit and miss. Standards of hygiene in Egypt prompted yet another British Army turn of phrase – Gypo Gut – which has similar implications to Montezuma’s Revenge, so the lower down the spectrum you slide the more likely you are to meet Montezuma in Egypt.

There is also an enormous bargain bin and package tour market in Europe for holidays to Egypt that tend to use accommodation vouchers for the diversity of mid mid-range establishments. These, although well in the mass market, are generally found to be acceptable to the average European palette, so should work for most.

Almost every hotel in Egypt, however, caters in one way or another for foreign tourists, so even at the most basic level, and assuming like everyone else you have booked in advance, you will find facilities broadly acceptable to western travellers, and only a stroke of utter misfortune will find you consigned to a pestilent flea pit in the back streets of Alexandria as might have been the case 50 years ago.