Why is Red Sea so expensive this year?

[matador]

From the little I know the situation has not improved dramatically so how come almost all liveaboards are fully booked?
Same time last year I booked a trip for less that £650 incl. flights and I had a cabin for myself.
This year there are limited places available and for a price twice as much ...

 

[flizzy]

I noticed that as well when I was looking at trips this winter. I wondered if what with bombs going off in Europe people have decided people have decided they might as well just go to Egypt!

 

[diverLux]

There has been a general increase in travel costs and I suppose there are less boats too . . .

 

[Blasto]

Maybe the right question to ask is why was Red Sea being sold below cost last year.

Liveaboards elsewhere are still a lot more expensive.

 

[Fuzzmex]

I noticed a similar trend for the resorts.
There may be a number of reasons for this, but a major factor seems to be the downfall of Turkey as a tourist destination this year.
Greece is suffering a similar fate, albeit for different reasons and to a far lesser extent.
Countries like Spain and Portugal benefited from this for sure, and it seems like Egypt has as well.
Where the latter destination may be picking up Russian all-inclusive tourists that are avoiding Turkey.
Anyway, that's my two pennies...

I'll be going to Marsa Alam this week to see with my own eyes, and do a bit of diving of course...

 

[matador]

@Blasto it was cheap last year because ISIS blew up two planes flying over Egypt ... At last minute dive operators preferred to operate the liveaboards even below cost as fixed costs had already been paid.

@Fuzzmex Turkey's tourism downfall start LAST year: The chaos in Turkey has set tourism back a quarter century
while Greece is having a record year this year: Greece’s Tourism set to break record numbers in 2017 - Greek City Times so I am not sure your theory holds.

One potential explanation could be that the slump last year took many operators out of business so this year there are less liveaboards operating. This does not seem to be true for the biggest operators but maybe it is true for smaller ones ... I am not on the ground so cannot confirm though ...
Another explanation is that people basically forgot about those two plane incidents in Egypt and realised that they are running the same danger living in Paris or Manchester so they might as well live a little ...

just my 2c

 

[Fuzzmex]

It obviously doesn't hold for Greece
@matador Looking at your flickr albums and just wanted to say: beautiful pics!

 

[Sunn]

One potential explanation could be that the slump last year took many operators out of business so this year there are less liveaboards operating. This does not seem to be true for the biggest operators but maybe it is true for smaller ones ...

liveaboard operators are operating normally
daily dive has dramatically fallen, many boats stopped and operators closed...

 

[Hoag]

As of 5 August, the Government of Canada is still showing the Risk Level in Egypt as "AVOID NON-ESSENTIAL TRAVEL".

It is obviously up to each individual as to how much risk they are willing to accept and where they ultimately decide to go.

 

[flizzy]

As of 5 August, the Government of Canada is still showing the Risk Level in Egypt as "AVOID NON-ESSENTIAL TRAVEL".

It is obviously up to each individual as to how much risk they are willing to accept and where they ultimately decide to go.

From the website:

"This advisory does not apply to the Red Sea coastal resorts of Hurghada (and its surroundings) and Sharm el-Sheikh, nor to the area from Luxor to Aswan along the upper Nile, where you should exercise a high degree of caution."

Very, very little has gone wrong for tourists in the Red Sea area, ever since the start of the Arab Spring.