What’s up with Outrageous Rental Prices in Egypt’s North Coast?

Why go to the most luxurious hotels in Paris, New York and Dubai with Michelin-starred restaurants providing room service, original pieces of art by famous artists lining the bedroom wall, and professionally trained butlers ready to attend to your every need, when for the same price you can stay in a run-down motel in Egypt’s North Coast?

For just 1020 US dollars a night, which is roughly 19,000 Egyptian pounds, you can stay in the room pictured and wake up to the sight of a car park, construction site and the Mediterranean sea in the far distance if you look really closely. While the room doesn’t have air conditioning, you can still enjoy the sound of your neighbour’s rattling air conditioning rattling outside next to your window.

The entrance room is an open-plan living and kitchen room, fully fitted with a fridge and gas canister (pictured) for the kitchen stove, which adds to the feng shui of this simplistic and refined living space. This fun and functional apartment also features designers curtains that beautifully depict a horse galloping through the fields, which is spectacularly illuminated by the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

The bedroom’s plastic-covered mattress and lack of pillowcases abides to the bohemian ethos of the room and adds to the feeling of simplicity that this space exudes. The deliberate choice to not have bed-side lights is also emblematic of the philosophy of this space as a place of rest.

What’s up with outrageous North Coast rental prices? And do people really cough up the insane amount of money for often sub-par accommodation? While subpar accommodation like this can often be found for over a thousand US dollars, luxury hotels on the North Coast that are actually really nice have likewise put up unbelievably expensive room rates. In the run up to Eid al-Adha in 2022, screenshots from booking.com of a luxury suite at a fancy hotel going for over a million Egyptian pounds sparked equal amounts of confusion and laughter, but also anger. These ludicrous North Coast rental prices while absurd and sometimes even comical, they are also emblematic of soaring prices across Egypt and of a coastline once accessible to the majority of the population, now cordoned off by ever more exclusive developments.

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