High tower hotels. Fancy resorts. Yacht and underwater submarine tours. Tourists gathered in restaurants and cafes. Beaches packed with dozens of sunbeds. An example of the never-ending circle of unsustainable tourism that Egypt has been witnessing for years, which damages the environment and puts marginalized communities at risk of losing their local culture. According to Essam Abdel-Salam Goudav in ‘Problems that Impede Sustainable Tourism Development in Egypt,’ tourism development has led to damages to marine environment and lack of integration between natural and built areas. Gareth Shaw and Allan Williams also note in ‘Critical Issues in Tourism: A Geographical Perspective’ that tourism development, though it helps in generating economic growth, it also leads to the social and physical reconstruction of localities to serve tourists and the private sector. Tourism has become a ‘national brand’ for the state, which often falls under Westernized frameworks and histories of the nation-state that positions the tourist as a buyer of a national product such ‘France’ or ‘Italy’. Yet this model is counteractive and unsustainable for many countries with rich and diverse cultures, as well as several local communities that hold their own histories and…
