Middle East and Africa Hotel Pulse: Egypt Struggles with Inflation

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Read the latest news from around the Middle East Africa region.

With the value of the Egyptian pound cratering as global costs grow, Egypt now faces an economic crisis that necessitates intervention from the International Monetary Fund, the New York Times reports. The newspaper notes Egyptians are struggling to pay skyrocketing grocery prices, with eggs and meat now viewed as a luxury item.

“All I do is think about how we’ll survive on our budget just to feed ourselves,” Mai Abdulghani, a 30-year-old Cairo-based communications officer at a development nonprofit, told the Times. “Every time we visit the supermarket, my blood boils.”

While borrowing isn’t easy anywhere right now, the problem of being short on available capital is especially acute for hoteliers in Africa. HNN’s Terence Baker reports many African lenders are now looking inward to fund hotel projects.

Speaking at the Atlantic Ocean Hotel Investors’ Summit, Jean-Louis Ekra, founder of Abidjan, Ivory Coast-based investor Ayipling Morrison Capital, said financial institutions such as the Africa Import Export Bank have initiated vehicles able to lend to African hotel and tourism developments with better terms and more alignment.

“Banks have started to ease construction risk. We saw that risk was so high, it had to be dealt with,” he said.

Israeli news outlet Globes reports two Saudi Arabian islands on the Red Sea could soon open to Israeli travelers as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan “to develop his country and open it up to the world.”

The islands were purchased from Egypt in 2016.

HNN’s Dana Miller reports Valor Hospitality Partners see big growth opportunities in the Middle East, with global partner and CEO Euan McGlashan noting a deal in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, epitomizes the Atlanta-based firm’s strategy to grow globally.

Valor partnered with the state-owned Investment Corporation of Dubai to operate the 288-room Radisson Blu Hotel Dubai Deira Creek, the 290-room Wyndham Dubai Deira, the 131-room Days Hotel by Wyndham Dubai Deira and the 94-room Super 8 by Wyndham Dubai Deira.

“There’s a shift coming; there’s new hotels opening up and I do think there’s a play for third-party” operators, McGlashan said.

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