Pharaoh exchange

While the Foreign & Commonwealth Office is advising travellers to avoid the square and nearby parts of Cairo, it has no travel warning for the rest of the country.

Yet the number of visitors to Egypt in the second quarter of 2011 showed a massive plunge: some 2.2 million against 3.5 million in the same period of 2010. And large discounts are beginning to appear on holidays there on either side of the festive season.

Olympic Holidays offers a seven-night all-inclusive Christmas package based on the four-star Pyramisa Isis Hotel, set in extensive gardens beside the Nile in Luxor, with flights from Manchester on December 21 and transfers. The package, originally priced at £1,000, has been slashed to £625.

First Choice has slashed the price of seven nights’ all-inclusive from December 18 at a four-star holiday village in Sharm el-Sheikh from £979 to £559, saving a massive £420.

Peter Kearns, managing director of Red Sea Holidays, which is adding El Gouna to its 2012 programme, says: “We have suspended Cairo excursions temporarily until the situation calms down, but in Red Sea resorts and Luxor, everything is business as usual.

“Our customers seem to understand how far away Cairo is from the Red Sea resorts; it is more than 300 miles from Luxor or Hurghada to Cairo, for example.

“The disturbances themselves are confined mainly to Cairo’s downtown area and Tahrir Square which, of course, should be avoided. But Cairo is a huge city and most tourist areas remain completely unaffected.”

“Far from deterring travel to Egypt, sales continue to come in.”

Red Sea Holidays has some great value mid-December packages: seven nights’ all-inclusive at the five-star Grand Hotel, Sharm el-Sheikh, starts at £459, including return flights ex-Manchester.

At rival operator Discover Egypt, Philip Breckner says: “We have not been using hotels in central Cairo for some time, and we house our clients in the outer areas of Giza and Heliopolis. Our tours are operating normally, though we take security advice on a daily basis.”

Longwood Holidays’ Alan Meadows says: “Confidence for Luxor has been returning in the last month, but with Cairo in the news like it is, bookings can be affected for other areas. But Egypt does bounce back quickly.”