The Egyptian Minister of Tourism, Hesham Zazou, has discussed with the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) the possible methods of providing hotels with the required soft loans to shift to green energy. Zazou said 39 hotels expressed interest in this initiative; 15 in Red Sea, 18 all over the country and six hotels has already started executing the project with cost of EGP 6 million. He emphasized on the importance of dealing with NBE to support and encourage hotels to shift to the green energy as soon as possible as it is an international attitude which will benefit tourism and raise the prices of rooms. NBE aims to finance 300 hotels in the Red Sea to use electrical power instead of diesel and heavy fuel oil for smart lighting and solar heaters so as to solve the current power shortage through using alternative and clean energy resources. The value of finance that will go for each hotel will vary according to the size and usage of each hotel as the 500-room hotel, which will use electrical energy for both smart lighting and solar heaters, will require finance of EGP 5.5 million.
