AIN SOUKHNA: Between the Oscars and the Six Nations Rugby it truly was super Saturday over the weekend, and what better place to get the red carpet treatment than at the Stella Di Mare on the Gulf of Suez. I have been coming here for three years and I've always felt the knick name, 'Ain Slickner', due to the passing oil tankers was unfair. I have never seen globules of oil as I have south of Hurghada, and that is because ships heading for the Suez Canal stop their engines long before this stretch of coast - their momentum and the tide doing the rest. I am on the beach early with the crew responsible for cleaning and racking the sand. Though the water is too icy for swimming long, even with my wet suit, I give it a go and as predicted can only manage 50 m before retreating to the protection of two fluffy towels and my hoodie. The weather reports kept flashing Cairo 26 degrees, but on the beach it was a weekend for room service and a feast of satellite TV. Without the privilege offered by Egyptian Residency, I and many others probably wouldn't stay in a beach resort due mainly to the cost, but the Stella Di Mare does well from Cairo's expatriate population, which accounts for approximately 20 perent of its business. In other parts of the world, a development like the Stella Di Mare which opened six years ago, are seen as antiquated, but here it seems to fit with the family side of the Egyptian character, utilizing a barren stretch of coast and accessing the sea water for use in the hotel through salination plants, seems to make good practical sense. Economically it appears as a boom for investors with villas and chalets having doubled or tripled in value in the last few years. A model, which owner Ayoub Adly Ayoub, is repeating in Hurghada with the development of Makadi Bay (opening 2009), where investment properties are selling off the plan for Euro 650 per square metre. In lay terms, a bargain! A bargain for middle income Europeans who are investing with increasing regularity in these sun kissed resort developments, who can rent them to holiday makers and also block out a week or even months for their own personal use. With cheap flights with the likes of Air Berlin connecting many European locations with Hurghada more and more is being integrated into the European culture of mini-breaks. This is going to be very interesting when the stag and stagette parties discover the cheap beer and fun in the sun to be had in Egypt. Looking towards future trends, it is a more genteel market the Stella Di Mare is cultivating with the opening last year of the Golf Hotel within the grounds of the beach resort on the Suez-Hurghada Road. The Recreation Manager, Chiara Agnoletti, says: "the Golf Hotel is very successful. It is a boutique hotel which attracts many Europeans during the winter months and they are good drinkers and good company . The golf tourist is a lucrative market. Spending on average more than double what other tourists flitter away. Ms Agnoletti is a regular at the International Golf Travel Market which was recently held in Spain and next year will be in Mexico. Stella Di Mare is an aggressive marketer and their sales team attends the BIT - Milan, WTM - London and the industry show piece, ITB - Berlin. This year, a new wellness fair opens in Paris, a growing market, which last year in the United States was worth billions of dollars in spa treatments, massages, lifestyle seminars and associated products. Not only has gold hit a nine month high, but it is boom time on the Red Sea. Cement and steel plants proliferate. The Port of Suez is bustling with the Canal accounting for around 7 per cent of world shipping. Dredging is schedule to start soon to widen and deepen the Canal for even larger ships and tankers; it can only mean more business along the coast. The sea floor is being drilled for black gold, annual tourist figures climb steadily and foreign currencies maintain extraordinary buying power in Egypt. "Let the good times roll , sang someone who knew about such things and get on the band wagon, because everyone's a winner baby that's for sure, in the great Red Sea real estate boom of the 21st Century.
