Development of Sharm El-Sheikh's Ras Um Sid area requires EGP 850m in funding to avoid a collapse and protect the locale, according to a South Sinai Governorate official. He added that the Arab Contractors company has currently suspended protection operations. The official attributed the stoppage to a lack of funding as well as the discovery that the protective operations conducted by Arab Contractors are not sufficient, which led the governorate of South Sinai to call for the project to be assigned to a different consultant. The plateau's hotel capacity is 4,000 rooms and is also home to commercial and recreational services, the official said. Sharm El-Sheikh's total hotel capacity amounts to more than 35,000 rooms out of 62,000 rooms across the South Sinai Governorate, according to the Egyptian Chamber of Hotels. The official said: "The plateau's collapse would be catastrophic, unless the state intervenes to protect the hotel facilities erected there." A 2008 collapse in Cairo's Duwaiqa claimed the lives of more than 50 individuals and displaced thousands of families. The official said that "the relevant authorities should have offered a tender for construction operations in the area in accordance with technical considerations for the territory, but this did not take place under the business policies adopted by the Mubarak regime over the past 20 years". Yasser Amer, South Sinai Governorate Media Spokesman, said in former press statements to the Daily News that hotel occupancies in Sharm El-Sheikh are expected to rise from 85% to 100% at the end of this week. "We expect occupancies to increase starting from October, the beginning of the winter season, in light most countries recently lifting travel warnings to Sharm El-Sheikh," said Hesham Aly, Chair of the Tourism Investors Association in South Sinai. Fifteen European countries issued travel warnings to South Sinai in February following a tourist bus bombing near the city of Taba. South Sinai accounts for one third of Egypt's total hotel capacity of 225,000 rooms according to the Chamber of Hotels. Tourism fell to $3bn during the first quarter of this year compared to $4.4bn for the same period last year.
